Life Lessons Learned The Hard Way
by angelsixtwofive
Summary: Weiss always had a life chosen for her. She just didn't know how hard it would be to continue through it after learning what happened to her friends. Now as she helps her fathers company gain support, she is escorted by three unknown warriors. Who are these peculiar people? Mercenary AU!
1. Chapter 1

The gymnasium erupted in great amounts of applause and cheering.

_BOOM! BOOM!_

Two large confetti cannons shot off and covered the air in large amounts of green and white confetti. Air horns and vuvuzelas sounded from the crowd. There might have been even a conch shell that sounded. There were many high pitched whistles from some parts as well.

The group of almost 200 students stood on the floor of the gymnasium. They all stood out of their seats, removed their gown caps, and threw them into the air.

It was official.

After a long, grueling four years, they had all graduated from Beacon University. The headmaster stood on the stage, as he watched the students before him hug their friends and classmates. His short white hair shimmered in the light of the gymnasium.

As the confetti began to flutter down along with the students hats, he walked back up to the microphone that hung on the pedestal in the center of the stage.

"Settle down everyone, settle down." he said into the microphone. His name was Professor David Ozpin. All the students continued to stand but looked to the stage.

"I forgot the last part of my speech." he said. "I want you, all, to look at your diplomas that you have received here today. Those diplomas are your tickets. The tickets to your new lives. Follow your dreams and make sure that one day that those dreams are fulfilled. And if they do, come back to me and tell me of your adventures, if you wish." he said with a grin.

The students on the floor began clapping at their headmaster's final part of the speech. The chorus of vuvuzelas, air horns, and conch shells sounded once more, along with more applause.

"Thank you all for coming tonight." he said to everyone in the gymnasium. "I hope you all had a grand time, watching your sons, daughters, nieces and nephews, making their final steps in this school as they walked up and received their diplomas. Because, I know did." The professor spoke. He turned his attention once more to the students. "Now, I can say for one last time. You. Are. Dismissed." he said.

More clapping erupted as the students walked out of the gymnasium, and outside into the prowl. Groups of friends began to branch off into smaller sections. Some going to find their parents and go to dinner with them. Others stuck with their friends and texted their patents, alerting them as to where they were going.

Most of them were going to go out partying. Others would go out to a fancy restaurant and celebrate in style.

One group of friends stuck together closely. Four girls walked along the cobblestone pathway of the school they had been at for four years. They all wore the same thing at the moment. A long white graduation gown with a green cap.

The one on the far left, who was the shortest of the group by just a few inches, had short black hair with red highlights and deep silver eyes.

Standing to her left was a girl with long white hair that was up in an off centered ponytail, and sky blue eyes. Running down her left eye was a long scar from a fencing accident in her second year at the school.

To her left stood a girl who was the same height as the girl to her right. She had long raven black hair that ran down to her center back. Her amber eyes shinned in the dimming light of the sunset. Hidden under her cap was a small black bow. But the friends knew what she was hiding. Under the bow were a pair of black and purple cat ears. She trusted them to not tell anyone about them in their third year. Of course, they kept their promise and no one else knew about them.

Finally, at the far right of the group was a girl with incredibly long blonde hair that went past her waist. She had two large lilac colored eyes. She was also the tallest of the group, but only by a few inches.

Their names were Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna, and Yang Xiao Long.

They were walking towards a black, four person vehicle that was owned by Blake. They were going to take it back to their off-campus flat. They would all be returning to their respective homes in the morning, but promised to all get back together for a long, much needed, summer vacation. They all walked with a comfortable silence in the air, except for the cheering of other graduates in the background.

After a few minutes of walking, they finally made it to the car. Blake had bought the car for herself in her first year at the school, and it's been with her ever since. Yang had a motorcycle at the house herself as well. They all piled into the car with Blake driving and Yang in the passenger seat. Ruby and Weiss scooted into the back and sat there, their hands rested on top of each other's.

The two had been dating since their second year of Beacon. They had first denied their feelings for each other and pulled it off as just being close friends. But, eventually they got together and became a couple. Ruby had been the one who asked Weiss out. Blake and Yang had placed bets on who would ask who out. Yang won 50 lien that day.

Weiss's parents didn't really approve of the relationship. They tried to get Weiss to break it off with Ruby. Her parents thought that it wouldn't work. They thought that it would work because they were the owners of the largest gasoline company in the world and Weiss needed to marry a man of another large company so that their company's power would grow. They were so focused on the company, they didn't even come for their own daughter's college graduation. Weiss was the heiress to said company. It was no use though. Weiss and Ruby remained together, and the time that they were, it was the happiest times of their lives.

Weiss's parents had forced her to go for a business degree in Beacon. Ruby and Blake both went for a law enforcement degree, and would soon be going to a police academy after summer. Yang although went through the school just get more education, there was a possibility she would go into the military later on. But she was beginning to start leaning towards going into the police force with Ruby and Blake.

Blake started up the car and they drove off the campus. They all took of their gown caps and placed them in their laps. They watched in the rear view mirror as the lights of Beacon University faded in the distance. Yang was the first to break the silence. A huge grin spread across her face as she began to laugh. Ruby and Weiss tilted their heads while looking at Yang as if she had two heads. Blake just glared out the corner of her eye.

"What on Remnant is so funny?" Weiss asked.

"Nothing. Nothing, it's just. I can't believe we're out of that place!" Yang said. The others smiled and grinned when she said this.

"Yang, we're happy too. But you don't see us laughing maniacally." Ruby said.

"Ruby, you should know this about her. You're her sister after all." Blake said.

"Oh shut up." Yang said. "I can't believe it, tomorrow I can sleep in. And it's not a weekend!" she shouted.

"You sound like you're a grade schooler." Weiss said.

"Don't care. I'm a College graduate." Yang said while pointing to herself.

"Barely passing one at the most." Blake said with a smile.

Yang sighed. "Don't rain on my parade, Blake." she said.

"That's my job as your friend." Blake said.

This caused a few giggles from the back seat.

"Whatever." Yang said with a grin.

They rode the rest of the five minute drive back to their flat in silence. They drove up to the apartment and pulled to a stop outside. The building was a regular looking brownstone house. It was four levels with the three other floors belonging to other students of Beacon.

They got out of the car and walked up to the door. Ruby punched in a 4 digit code and the door opened up. Together they walked up the spiral stairs of the brownstone and stopped on the third floor. Ruby this time brought out the key, out of a small pocket on her gown and unlocked the door. The four friends together walked into their flat. The kitchen was to their immediate left, and as soon as Yang walked through the door she walked in there and began to prepare some drinks.

The blonde was known for her peculiar drinking habits. She would always drink on the weekends, party or no party. The other three friends would only drink on occasions. And tonight was a very special occasion.

They all took off their gowns to reveal casual clothing like every other day. Ruby was wearing a red t-shirt that had a rose emblem on the chest and black cargo pants. She also wore red and black combat boots. Weiss wore a white blouse and lightly faded blue jeans. On her feet she wore plain white high-heels. Blake wore a black tank top and dark purple shorts. Along with the shorts she had black stockings that had streaks of the same colored purple running down the side. On her feet were black punk boots. Finally, Yang wore her favorite leather jacket (that always showed too much cleavage) with a yellow tank top under it and an orange scarf around her neck, along with bright yellow and brown daisy dukes for her pants. On her feet she wore knee high brown boots.

Yang finished pouring the four glasses of whiskey that was kept in the kitchen for special occasions. The others walked into the kitchen and grabbed one of the drinks. They all stood around each other while Yang raised her glass in the air.

"I have no other thing to say about this occasion other than, Congratu-freakin-lations. To all of us." she said.

"Congratulations!" the other three said. With that word, they all took big sips of their drinks. Ruby, Weiss, and Blake all recoiled slightly from the taste. They never drank heavily. Just from time to time. If anything though, Weiss preferred wine. Yang didn't recoil at all. She slammed the entire drink in one gulp.

"You guys are weak." she said with a grin.

"Drinking isn't a daily routine for us." Weiss said back.

The night went on. There were drinks, talking, and happiness. The four friends celebrated until the late hours of the night. It was around midnight when Blake was passed out on the couch, and Yang in the same state on the floor. They both went overboard with the alcohol after Yang challenged Blake to a drinking contest.

Ruby and Weiss were sitting at the small kitchen table, still talking to each other. Mostly about their future together. Neither of them were drunk but they were slightly buzzed. They each at the moment had a glass of water in front of them.

"So, what do you think your dad's going to do when you get home?" Ruby asked. Curious because Weiss was supposed to become the owner of the gasoline company and her father had been on Weiss about "performing her duties" while at home.

"Hopefully, he lets me rest for a few days. He might send a suitor or two towards me but, nothing big." Weiss said. Her father had tried to get her together with many men, but none to her liking. Some even came to Beacon to try and win her over. One of them didn't even want to be there, he said how he had his "eyes on another girl at home" and his father wanted a richer girl. The boy left with a smile after he learned Weiss was indeed a lesbian and nothing would happen between them.

"Just don't get yourself hurt while I'm not around." Ruby said.

Weiss looked at Ruby like she was insane. "Me? Get hurt? I'm the one who should be worried about you. You are a bit of a klutz." Weiss said with a sly smile.

Ruby giggled at this. "Ok, ok. I see your point. I just worry about you when you're there. Like your father might hurt you or something to get his way." she said.

Weiss shook her head. "My father might pull a few crazy stunts at some points to get his way, but I don't think he would stoop to that level of low to get his way." she said.

Ruby gazed off. "I guess you right." she said as she raised her glass to her mouth and took a sip of her water and then set it back down onto the table. Ruby's eyes widened as she remembered something. "Oh! Be right back, stay there." she said. She ran off and came back a minute later with small bag in her hands.

She handed it to Weiss with a smile as she sat back down in her chair. Weiss gave Ruby a confused look. "You got me something?" Weiss asked.

Ruby shrugged. "It may not be our anniversary or anything, but I though graduation was a special occasion." she said.

Weiss sighed. "Well, you know what they say. Two great minds do think alike." she said while pulling out a long, thin box from her jeans pocket. She placed the small bag onto the table and handed the box to Ruby.

"You want to open yours first or should I?" Ruby asked.

"You go first." Weiss said.

Ruby nodded and lifted the top off of the box up. Inside was a necklace. The emblem on the golden chain was a beautiful crystal snowflake. Snowflake had been one of the many nicknames that Yang had given to Weiss. Snowflake was one of the ones that stuck the most. The crystal shimmered in the faint natural light of the kitchen. Ruby's eyes widened at the piece that sat in the box. Her mouth left agape. "It's beautiful, Weiss. Thank you." Ruby said as she gave a quick hug to Weiss. "Now it's your turn." Ruby said.

"Ok." Weiss said. She plucked the small bag off the table and held it. There was paper inside of it and Weiss took it out. Sitting at the bottom of the bag, was a long, thin box. Similar to the one she had given Ruby. Weiss took the box out and opened it. Inside there was a necklace as well, there was also a gold chain. But the emblem on the necklace was a rose. Crafted perfectly out of a ruby. Weiss felt her jaw open and stay open. She was at a loss for words. The only thing she managed to do was pull Ruby in for a warm hug.

"Ruby, this is quite possibly one of the best things anyone had ever given me. It is simply amazing. I guess, the only other thing I can say is, thank you." Weiss said. They came out of the hug as briefly kissed each other passionately.

When they came out the kiss Ruby spoke. "Now you'll have you ruby rose, where ever you may go." she said.

"You've been spending too much time with Yang for that crummy joke." Weiss said.

Ruby chuckled slightly. She then yawned heavily. It was late in the night. Weiss did need to catch the train tomorrow. "Come on. Let's head to bed." Ruby said. She stood up and walked out of the room with Weiss in tow.

When they got into their room they quickly changed into their night ware and laid in their bed. They shared their bed shortly after they started dating. They wanted to get the flat some bunk-beds when they first arrived, but they didn't have enough money to afford them.

Ruby nestled herself inside Weiss's arms and they shortly after drifted off into sleep.

* * *

The next morning things went smoothly. Weiss had her bags packed and ready. A cab would arrive shortly to bring her to the train station. The train ride would be around 12 hours until it arrived at the station near Schnee Manor. Or, White Castle as to which some people were beginning to call it.

At the moment, the four girls were waiting by the front door of the building, waiting for the cab to arrive. A knowing silence was spread through the air.

That silence was of course broken by the cab pulling up to the curb and honking the horn. Goodbye hugs started going around. Ruby almost didn't let go of Weiss. Yang thought she was going to have to pry her sister off of Weiss for a second. Reluctantly, the red headed girl let go of Weiss.

Ruby and Weiss quickly kissed. "Promise me you'll contact me every day?" Ruby asked

Weiss smiled at the girl. "I promise." she said.

The group of friends finished their farewells and watched as Weiss walked out the door. The cabbie took her bags and loaded them into the trunk of the cab. Weiss walked over to the door of the cab and opened it. She was about to get in when she looked back at the house, wondering if she'll ever see it again.

'Silly thought,' Weiss thought 'Of course I'll see it again.'

She waved to her friends that were standing at the door, watching her go. They waved back as Weiss got into the back of the cab.

"Where to?" the cabbie asked.

"Vale Central Station, please." Weiss replied.

"You got it." he said.

The cabbie brought the car out of park and began to pull away from the house. As he did, Weiss brought her hand up to her neck and felt the necklace that Ruby had given her just last night.

'See you soon, my sweet rose.' she thought.

25 minutes later, the cab pulled up outside Vale Central Station. Weiss paid the cabbie the fair and got out. The cabbie got out as well and helped Weiss grab the bags out the trunk. "Thanks." Weiss said. The cabbie simply smiled and got back into his cab and drove away.

Weiss took her bags and made her way to her track. When she got there, the train had just arrived. And of course, her father had ordered for there to be a private Schnee car.

One of the car had little windows and was branded with a large Schnee Gas Company logo of a large snowflake. She made her way onto the train car and opened a door of the car.

She placed her bags in a corner and sat down in one of the luxurious seats. After a short while, a butler came in and stood in front of Weiss. "Miss Schnee, we shall be arriving at White Castle in about 12 hours. In the meantime, is there anything you would like to drink?" the butler asked.

"No thank you, Gregory. Maybe later though." she said.

"Very well, Miss Schnee." Gregory said. He left the room without another word.

Weiss leaned her head back and shut her eye, hoping to sleep through the entire train ride. She may have not been tired, but she eventually fell into a light sleep.

When the train finally arrived at White Castle, she disembarked and walked out of the small station. Outside, a large white limo that also had the Schnee company crest branded into the side. The driver stood by the door and opened it as Weiss came towards the limo.

"Welcome back to White Castle, Miss Schnee." the driver said.

"Thank you, Sebastian." Weiss said. As she got into the limo. Sebastian then, closed the door behind her and he loaded the bags into the trunk of the limo. He then quickly came around the car and got in a drove to White Castle which was still another 1-1/2 miles away.

When they arrived, Weiss learned that her parents were at business meeting and wouldn't be back until tomorrow. Sebastian took the bags out of the car and brought them up to her room.

Weiss walked up to her room and sat down on her bed after Sebastian left her room. She was very tired even though she had slept practically all day. She didn't know why she was so tired but she just passed it off as a minor inconvenience. She wasn't hungry at all either. Blake had made a large breakfast that morning that was very delicious and filling.

So, she just laid down on her bed and closed her eyes, wondering what the next day had in store for her when her parents returned home.

In the morning, Weiss got up and almost wondered where she was. She walked into her personal bathroom and took a long warm shower. When she got out and walked out of the bathroom and found a silver platter with her breakfast sitting on it. Next to it laid a white dress that went down to her knees. Weiss put her hair in its usual off center ponytail and put on the formal dress. She placed her phone in a pocket on vibrate just in case she was texted or called. She wrapped the necklace that Ruby gave her around her neck and latched it on. She sat on her bed and enjoyed the small breakfast that had been brought to her.

It consisted if a muffin, a few pancakes, a glass of Orange Juice, and half a melon with sugar on it. After she ate the breakfast she noticed that there was a small note on the side. She opened the note and read it.

_Miss Schnee,_

_Your father is currently waiting for you in his office. You must see him as soon as you finish your breakfast. Have a wonderful morning._

The note didn't have any signature to it. She assumed it was either one of the chefs. Either that or a butler or maid.

She slipped on a pair of high heels and walked out of her room. The halls of White Castle were empty and dark. The only light coming from lamps that were made to look like torches that were hanging on the wall. Weiss's footsteps echoed through the empty halls.

She finally walked upon two large mahogany doors. She heard the ruffling of papers from the other side of the door. She got in a tall and proud posture with her back straight and knocked on the door three times.

"Come in, Weiss." her father said from the other side of the door.

With her back still straight she opened one of the doors to her father's office. Inside, her father was sitting at his desk with stacks of papers piled around him. There was a tablet to his left and a laptop to his right. He was switching between paperwork and emails constantly. His hair was as white as Weiss', he had a white suit with a blue tie. He had piercing blue eyes like Weiss' as well. But his eyes were like pure ice instead of a calm sky.

He gazed at Weiss with a half-smile. He looked disappointed and proud at the same time. "Hello, dear." He said.

"Hello, Father." Weiss said as she gave him a formal curtsy.

"It's good to see that your time at that school didn't affect you formalities." he said coldly.

Weiss didn't say anything. She knew better than to talk back to him, on risk of a punishment.

"You do know your duties at this company will soon come, correct?" he asked.

Weiss nodded. "Yes, father." she said.

"And you do know how much responsibility that title comes with, do you?" he asked.

"Yes, father." Weiss said.

"And that you can't have many distractions while you are in charge of our own family legacy." he said.

"Father?" Weiss said with a confused look.

"You can't have a lot of distractions while you are in charge. And if I know better, you have plenty of distractions from leaving that school. Those people you associated yourself with." her father said.

"You mean my friends?" Weiss asked.

"Yes, those, _friends_ of yours. Especially that, _Ruby_ girl that you started to, _date_. They are pure distractions." he said. A few of the words that he said, he said with such venom in his voice.

"What do you mean, father?" Weiss asked. She was starting to get a little nervous.

Her father looked right into her eyes. "Weiss, give me your phone." he ordered.

Weiss looked at him, not moving an inch.

Her father than stood up out of his desk and demanded her again, but in a louder, more hostile voice, "Weiss! Give me your PHONE!" he shouted.

Weiss complied and dug her phone out of her pocket and handed it to him. He took the phone and placed it on his side of the desk. He walked over to the wall and grabbed and older looking sword. It was a sword that had been passed down through the Schnee family for generations. He unsheathed the blade to reveal a long rapier. On the sheath of the blade, it read the name of the blade, Myrtenaster.

Her father stepped over to the desk once again and brought the blade up.

"NO!" Weiss shouted.

But it was too late. Her father brought the tip of the blade down and impaled the phone.

"You cannot have any distractions, Weiss." he said. "Friends are one of the main things that are distractions. And Schnee have no friends." he said as he sheathed the rapier.

Weiss looked on the brink of a panic attack. She now could not contact her friends. She couldn't contact Ruby. She was going to have to break her promise.

"Your only contacts will be business professionals, tutors, and myself." he said. "If I learn that you have come into any form of contact with those people you met at the school, you will be punished very, very severely." he said.

Weiss said nothing. She only gave a small nod.

"I have also taken away your computer in case you have any means of contacting them on that." her father said.

Weiss nodded again.

"It appears you understand fully. Return to your room. Tutors will arrive soon." he said. Even though Weiss had graduated college from one of the best schools in the world, he felt that Weiss still needed to be educated.

Weiss gave a shaky curtsy. She turned and walked out of the office. But before she could close the door, her father called to her. "Oh, and Weiss." he said. Weiss turned back to him and saw that he was once again sitting at his desk. "Congratulations on graduating, dear. Welcome to the real world." he said the last part coldly.

She turned and closed the door without saying anything else. She walked back to her room and played down on her bed. She had just been forbidden from seeing anyone. She looked out the window to her room and noticed that they had large locking mechanisms on them now and had thin, sturdy bars on the other side. She was actually trapped. Her own father had imprisoned her in the house.

Her mind drifted to Ruby. She would never see her again. At least until she was rid of her father. But who knew when that would be. That could be for years to come. And then when the company is brought onto her shoulders, she won't have any time. And who would know if until that happened if Ruby would even want to continue to date Weiss. Weiss's feelings for Ruby were unlike any feelings she had for any other person that was in her life.

Weiss would never again see Ruby's brilliant smile. Her stunning silver eyes. Never hear of her upbeat and happy personality that managed to always seem to put a smile on everyone's face that she came into contact with. She hoped that one day, Weiss would one day again get to see Ruby.

* * *

_7 Years Later_

Weiss had been having a slow day. The tutors had left for the night and she had no calls to take until tomorrow. Her father was also on a business trip and would return tomorrow. To pass the time she watched television. At the moment, she was surfing through the news channels from around the world. White Castle had few televisions but had hundreds upon thousands of channels to watch. She was almost out of the news section when she saw something that caught her eye.

It was the Vale News Channel and it was currently showing an image of a car accident. It looked to be a horrific scene. There were two cars involved and one of them was crushed and burning. The other car was simply spun out on the road. The news anchor, Lisa Lavender, spoke of the accident.

"The driver of the vehicle that spun out, said that he was trying to avoid a deer that had jumped onto the highway. When the driver swerved, another vehicle swerved to avoid that one and slammed the brakes. Since it was a rainy day in Vale, when the vehicle skidded it began to flip side over side. A spark in the car seemed to have ignited to gas tank and the car burst into flames. Killing the three occupants inside."

'Those poor people.' Weiss thought.

"Police traced back the license plate number back to a Miss Blake Belladonna, who was confirmed to be driving the car. Police also checked the other two bodies and found their I.D's on them. They were the sisters Ruby Rose and Yang Xiao Long."

When Weiss heard this, she froze. Her eyes widened and her jaw went slack.

"W-What?" she said.

"The three girls had just recently graduated from the Vale Police Departments SWAT Training Facility." The news station showed an image of the three girls standing next to each other. They all had on a type of Class-A suit on and a large hat at their sides. They held a sort of diploma in their hands. The all looked extremely happy and excited. Weiss choked back a sob when they showed this. She had just learned that her three closest friends that she had been forced to not see for years were gone. And when she looked at the image of Ruby, she had to choke back another sob.

Ruby was still wearing the crystal snowflake necklace that Weiss had given her. And it appeared she wore it with pride because it wasn't tucked under her collar. It was right out in the open.

"The three had been friends for years and had lived together for a while. One of the officers that had arrived on the scene knew the women from their days at the police academy." The image on the screen turned to a police officer. You couldn't see his eyes because they were hidden behind darkly tinted shades. His black hair was down to the back of his neck. Just over his right eye it was dyed a cyan blue.

"It's always sad to see a fellow officer fall. Even if you didn't know them much, there's that type of brotherhood that makes us feel like we all know each other like we were all best friends. So, yeah, it's always a hard day when an officer is killed." The screen turned back to Lisa Lavender.

"Miss Xiao Long was also a former sergeant in the Vytal military. She served four years before coming out and joint her sister and friend, Miss Belladonna, on the Vale Police Force. There will be a ceremony later on in the week for the fallen officers."

With that, the news station turned to a commercial break. Weiss just stared blankly at the screen. Her mouth still hung open and her eyes still wide. She felt tears begin to stream down her cheeks. She brought her hand up to the necklace that Ruby gave her. She turned off the television and got up. She got up and ran to her room. She fell on the bed, sobbing. She cried till late in the night when she finally fell asleep with a damp pillow under her.

She fell asleep with one thought on her mind. She never told Ruby how much she loved her.

* * *

_3 Years Later_

Weiss never forgave her father for what he had done. He had prohibited Weiss from seeing her two closest friends and her girlfriend. They had died, and Weiss knew she would never see them again. He had even forced Weiss not to go to the funeral ceremony for the three of them.

For a while, Weiss acted dead inside. She even contemplated suicide. But she thought to herself for a while and figured that Ruby and the others wouldn't want that. They would want Weiss to continue on with her own life.

Weiss did exactly that, no matter how much hated the life that had been picked out for her. She started to take more and more responsibilities towards the Schnee Gas Company.

One day, her father had summoned her to his office. There was some pestering situations at the moment. Threatening the company's reputation. There was a Faunus group known as the White Fang that was going violent. They were starting to gather power and support from other criminal organizations.

The company was sustaining heavy damages the group. Trains were being robbed that held Schnee gas. Some Schnee gas stations were even blown to smithereens. The reason they were targeting the company was because Weiss's father gave the Faunus workers of the company unequal pay and poor treatment as to the humans of the company.

Walking into the office, Weiss saw that her father was not alone. Along with her father, stood his two best advisors. They stood next to him on the left and right side of her father in white suits just like his own. One had short blonde hair and yellow eyes, the other one had short green hair and brown eyes. Weiss knew them as Aviary and Evan.

"Sit down, Weiss." Her father said as she walked in. Her father was looking through a few files that were played upon his desk.

Weiss complied and sat down in a chair before her father.

"What is it that you need, father?" Weiss asked.

Mr. Schnee looked at Weiss with a serious look on his face. "A company that we will be partnering up with has made a request to us. They wish to meet the people that they would be working with in their future. And for once, they have not asked of me. They have asked for you to come and represent the Schnee Gas Company. To show who they will be led by in the distant future." he said.

Weiss looked shocked, confused, and worried at the same time. "Me?" she asked.

Aviary, who was to the left of Mr. Schnee, spoke up at that point. "Yes, now the company is called Tanner Oil. They own over 75% of the offshore oil platforms, and they wish to be joined partners with The Schnee Gas Company. And the company's headquarters resides in the city of Vale." he said.

Evan, on the right side, took over then. "And the White Fang's headquarters is also in Vale. That is the place where they have more support. Riots will break out from the very mention of your name in some areas of the city. We do have our own guards to help escort and protect you, but we feel that that isn't going to be enough." he said.

"So what do you suggest?" Weiss asked.

"A mercenary group. We have asked around to other companies who have used mercenaries and every time this one group comes highly recommended." Evan said.

"So, call them." Weiss said.

"We were just about to, actually. I just wanted you to be present for the call." Mr. Schnee brought around the phone that was sitting on his desk. Aviary came around and dialed the number to the mercenary group and placed the phone on speaker. Aviary went back to his side of Mr. Schnee as the phone rang.

After a few rings, someone picked up. "H and H, how may I help you?" The person on the other end was using a voice modifier to hide his true voice. The modifier made his voice extremely deep.

Mr. Schnee spoke up. "Yes, hello, my name is Herald Schnee, I'm the owner of th-" he was cut off by the voice on the other end.

"I know who you are." the voice said.

"You do?" Mr. Schnee asked. This shouldn't have surprised him but the voice made it sound like a bad thing.

"Yup, got your file pulled up on my computer as we speak." the voice said.

"File?" Mr. Schnee asked.

"Yeah, got a lot of nice bounties on your head, none of them want to be done I guess. People do fear power quiet a lot. Your daughters even got a few on here as well. Not as major as yours though, so, she's safe." the voice said.

Weiss was scared for a moment but that went away when the voice said she was safe from the bounties.

"How major are mine?" Mr. Schnee asked. Weiss noticed the fearfulness in his voice.

"Uhh... About 900,000 lien in total. And according to my data base it rises by the hour." the voice said.

Mr. Schnee gulped slightly.

"Now, what can I help you with today, Mr. Schnee?" the voice asked.

"Yes, I would like to ask for your assistance in escorting my daughter through the streets of Vale. She will need to be brought to the Tanner Oil company headquarters and then escorted back to Schnee Manor." he said.

The voice seemed to be thinking deeply because he was silent.

"Ok, I understand the intenseness of your situation. Vale is heavily populated by the White Fang. So how about this, I'll send you my three best mercenaries that I have on hand at the moment. They'll be at Schnee Manor within the next few days with equipment and transport. And after the job is done, we'll talk numbers. Sound good?" The voice asked.

"That sounds fine, Mr... Uh, I didn't catch your name. Or the names of the mercenaries you will be sending." Mr. Schnee said.

"No names. I won't give you my codename just yet, but I will give you the code names of the three. Their code names are-" the voice was cut off by somebody's siting something in the background. The voice in the background they couldn't understand though. "Hmm. Apparently no code names either, right now. But they will give you their code names when they arrive." the voice said.

"Why no names?" Mr. Schnee asked.

"Because we're all considered dead here, Mr. Schnee. Good day. The mercenaries will be briefed and sent to you within a day or two." the voice said. After the final words, the other line hung up.

Mr. Schnee looked towards his daughter. "You are dismissed, Weiss." he said.

Weiss stood and gave her father a curtsy and left her father's office quickly.

* * *

_Same time; undisclosed location_

Weiss went back to her room. Slipping into her room, she didn't bother to change as she threw herself onto her bed, falling into a deep and peaceful sleep.

In a location that was far off from Weiss', a high pitched beeping of an alarm sounded through the room.

A girl laid in her bed, wanting not to get up, but she knew she had to. She brought her hand up and slapped the alarm clock, effectively turning off and knocking it to the floor. She opened her eyes to reveal large, silver irises.

Getting out of bed, she made her way to the bathroom, dog tags clinking around her neck. Looking into a mirror, she saw her black and red hair was a complete mess. She sighed and picked up a brush to begin fixing the tangled hair.

"Another day." she whispered to herself.

* * *

**AN: Chapter 1, complete! Hey guys, so I didn't do a new chapter for A DENT in Beacon this week. I had this idea a while ago (can't remember where from) for a mercenary AU. And I started building and branching off more and more with greater ideas. And now I've finally started it. I had to start it because I honestly felt "Oh my god, I have to get it out there fast before someone else gets the idea and beats me to the punch." and now I think I'm going to have a grand old time writing this story and I'll be alternating between ADiB and this story. So I hope you guys enjoyed it. Great amount of thanks to Shattered Spectre for beta reading and the title (I really couldn't think of one). Glad you read this and I'll see you all, in the next chapter!**


	2. Chapter 2

Her footsteps echoed slightly as she walked into her small bathroom. Luckily all the rooms at this place were one person rooms with their own bathrooms. She didn't like anyone seeing her bed-head in the early mornings.

Every time she brushed her hair, the dog tags around her neck would 'clank' together. The dog tags read "Ruby 'Red' Rose. Captain - Team Leader. Sniper."The other read "H&H Mercenary Services"

Below the name of the company was her symbol, a large red rose. It was the one thing that described her perfectly: Beautiful, yet dangerous.

Ruby had been doing this same routine for the past 3 years. Get up, get dressed, train like a madman, eat, sleep, and repeat. There was usually a large possibility of an assignment being thrown into the mix of that routine.

Some assignments would last a day or two, others weeks. She wasn't only a mercenary but also a bounty hunter. She collected bounties when she could.

She would have to look at her rifle to see how many bounties she had claimed.

There were no wanted alive bounties in her business. Not even dead or alive. Only dead or dead.

It was a couple days ago when she was looking through the large list of bounties that the place had and saw a name that brought her pain. Weiss Schnee.

Weiss had completely gone off the radar after college. No matter how many times Ruby had tried to call Weiss. But every time she called, she wouldn't get anything. Just an off the hook tone.

Weiss had promised to contact Ruby, she promised, right in front of Ruby. And then she just forgot about her, and never talked to her again. Not even an E-mail or anything.

Although, even though Weiss didn't contact Ruby, she had a feeling that it was not Weiss's fault that she wasn't contacting her. Ruby still held feelings Weiss, she still deeply did. She hoped that one day that she would see Weiss again. Slowly, the hopes turned to memories that seemed like they had happened only the day before.

Years after the graduation at Beacon University. She, Blake and Yang graduated from the VPD's SWAT Training Facility. They then went to a bar that night to celebrate. Later into the night a bar fight was started and the three of them were right in the middle of it.

In the end, they came out as the winners of the fight, all the other people in the bar were on the floor and unconscious. Only one other person was left.

A man sat in the corner of the room, casually drinking from a glass of scotch. His eyes were covered by a pair of deeply tinted shades. He had black hair with streak of cyan blue just over the right eye. He wore a white jacket and blue jeans. A pair of dog tags were hidden under the collar of the jacket but Ruby could see the metal beads that held the chain together. When he finished the glass he started to speak to them, said that they were pretty food fighters. He asked what their occupations were and they had told him that they just graduated from the SWAT training.

The man pulled three cards from his pocket and handed one of them to each girl. "Let me know if you're interested." he said and walked out the door of the bar, and disappeared into the night.

H&H Mercenary Services was what the cards said, and below that was the number of the company.

They all went back to the apartment they had in Vale, after explaining to first responders that they had used self-defense and had been allowed to go home.

They discussed it until almost 3 AM. Most of the time it was Blake and Yang trying to convince Ruby to do it. The two were already wanting to do it the moment they had gotten the cards. Yang had heard of the mercenary group from her time in the military. She said how the group was one of the most intricate groups out there and said how the personal invitations were rare. They apparently had a training school where the base for the group was as well. But if you got a personal invitation, you didn't need to go through the training courses.

Ruby's only thought on her mind while deciding to go into the group was Weiss. Ruby thought of what would happen if she were to go into the group and never have a chance to see Weiss again. Yang said that one day, maybe they would meet up at random. And maybe Weiss would have and explanation for her disappearance.

Eventually, Ruby broke and agreed to do it.

Later that morning, they called the number on the card that was given to them. They got a voice that was hidden by a voice modifier, which made it incredibly deep and rasp.

They told the voice how they were given a card with the number of the company on it and said how the person had said "Let me know if you're interested". The voice told them to hold and then came back five minutes later.

The voice said that they had tracked their call and that three representatives will arrive at their apartment tomorrow. After that the voice hung up.

The next day came quick and around two o'clock, there was a knock at the door. When Ruby answered it, she saw three people standing there. The first two were in all out combat gear.

The first was a woman with long red hair that was done up in a ponytail which was still at great lengths. She had a pair of caramel tinted shades hiding her eyes. Around her mouth was a gold colored scarf, almost like what Yang would wear sometimes around her neck. In her right ear, Ruby could see an ear piece for communications. On her torso, she had a black Kevlar vest which held a few magazine bands, a combat knife that went straight across in its sheath, and a satellite phone. On the left side of the chest was her possible codename, it said "Amazon". Under the Kevlar vest was a short sleeved crimson shirt. At the top of the left sleeve, sewn into the sleeve was her rank, a yellow bar signifying she was a lieutenant. On the other arm was the symbol of the company, which was a Valkyrie sword with a shield in the background. The sword split down the middle of the shield and on the two sides of the shield was an H on each side. And on the sword was an "&". Under the shield was one word, Mercenaries. On her legs she wore long black cargo pants. Strapped to her right thigh was a pistol holster. In the holster was what looked to be an M1911 handgun. More ammo seemed to be in the pockets of the cargo pants because they were bulging with box like shapes. On her feet she wore black combat boots. In her hands rested her weapon. An M14 semi-auto rifle. It was one of the older models which had a fixed stock at the end. For a sight there was a simple red dot scope. Under the barrel was a fore grip for better recoil control and accuracy. It weapon was painted a red and gold.

The other person standing next to her was a man with short messy, blonde hair. He too had a pair of shades covering his eyes, but his were tinted silver, almost like a mirror. The scarf around his face was white. An ear piece rested in his ear as well. He had the same combat gear as the girl next to him. He had the black Kevlar vest with the ammo bands, combat knife, and satellite phone. On the left side of the chest was his codename, it read "Knight". Under his vest though, he wore a black hoodie that had orange in the inside of the hood. The sleeves of the hoodie were rolled up to his elbows. On the right side of the hoodie was the company logo again. And on the left side of the hoodie was his rank, he bore the two silver captain bars. He wore black cargo shorts and combat boots as well. Strapped to his right thigh was also a weapon holster, but instead he had what looked to be a Glock 17. In his hands, his weapon was a Kriss Vector SMG. It had an EO-Tech holographic scope, a small grip under the barrel, a folding stock, and a suppressor on the barrel. His weapon was painted a pattern of gold and white.

Ruby knew what these weapons were because she became a weapon nerd during the SWAT training school.

Behind them, was the man they had met at the bar the other night. He wore simple clothing, much like what he had worn the other night. A white jacket and jeans. He still had the dark tinted shades on as well. But, around his waists were two pistol holsters, each one held a .44 magnum revolver. He didn't have one of the scarves around his face either. He looked like an everyday citizen, minus the hand-cannons at his sides.

"May we come in?" he asked.

"Uh... Sure." Ruby said. She stepped back from the door and let the three in. "In the living room." she said.

They walked into the living room and found Yang and Blake sitting on the couch. Yang was watching T.V. while reading Blake was reading a book. When Blake turned her gaze from her book and saw the three people standing by Ruby, she shut her book and tapped Yang's arm. Yang turned and saw that they had arrived. She immediately turned off the T.V.

Ruby brought three chairs over and sat them in front of the couch. She, Blake and Yang sat on the couch while the three people sat in the chairs. The woman with red hair sat on the right chair, the man with blonde hair sat on the right, and the black haired man sat in the middle.

"So," he said first "you wish to join our group?" he asked.

The three girls looked to each other, having a brief mental conversation. Finally, Yang spoke.

"You gave us an opportunity and we took it. You wouldn't be here if we weren't serious about joining, now would you?" she said.

The man looked to be thinking it over for a second. He then shrugged. He took off his tinted shades to reveal his brown eyes. "You can take them off." he said to his two companions.

The two looked to be unsettled by this, but the reluctantly took off the things that were hiding their faces. The man on the left took off his shades to reveal blue irises and the girl on the left revealed emerald green irises. The two then pulled down their scarves to reveal a black device that hugged their face.

"We must wear these in case someone has a chance of recognizing our voices." the blonde man said. The device was a voice modifier that made his voice deep, just like over the phone. They reached around to the back of their necks and undid a buckle and took them off.

The man in the center spoke then. "Sorry, they wear those for security. Whole company could be compromised if they didn't wear them and they saw someone they knew." he said

"Then why aren't you wearing one?" Blake asked.

The man shrugged. "Not from around here, my chances of seeing someone is extremely low." he said. "Anyways, this is one of my lieutenants, Pyrrha Nikos." he gestured to the woman on the left. "And this is one of my captains, Jaune Arc." he said while gesturing towards the man on the right.

"Hey." Jaune said.

"Hello." said Pyrrha.

"Hey." The three women said in unison.

"Finally, my name is Dan Scottson. I'm one of the commanders of H&H." he said with a smile as he stuck his hand out to shake their hands. They all shook his hand. When they did he brought his hand back down and his smile faded, becoming very serious. "Now, if you three are serious about joining, we need to get planning." he said.

"Planning? Planning for what?" Ruby asked, fairly confused.

"Why, planning your deaths of course." he said plainly.

The three girls eyes widened in shock. "Why do we have to plan our deaths?" Yang asked.

"Because everyone at H&H, are in the books as deceased." he said, as if it were completely normal to be known as dead.

"So if we want to be in your group, we have to fake our deaths?" Blake asked.

"Correct." Dan said.

"Which means we'll have to leave our old lives behind?" Yang asked.

"Correct again." he said.

"As well as people we know or knew?" Ruby asked.

"Correct, again! Man, you guys are on fire." he said with a smirk.

The women looked at each other once again, having another mental conversation. Finally, they looked towards the three again.

"Ok, we're in." Yang said.

"What's the plan?" Ruby asked.

They then went on brainstorming ideas. After about a half hour, they came up with the idea of a car accident. They would need more people from the company to help in the plan. What they were going to do was that they would take Blake's car, much to her dismay, and put three fake bodies inside of it.

The car would be controlled by a small remote control that took over the entire car without there being wires all over the place. They would have one of the other mercenaries in another car to fake almost hitting a deer. The remote controlled car would swerve to avoid hitting the other car, the car would begin to flip, and a non-traceable explosive device would ignite the gas tank, "killing" the three occupants.

All first responders to the scene would also be mercenaries, dressed in disguises as the first responders.

It was a tricky operation when it took place, but they managed to pull it off.

Ruby snapped out of her subconscious thoughts.

Now, Ruby had been doing this for three years, and she was the leader of one of the smaller teams in the company. In the team, it was just her, Blake, and Yang.

There were other mercenaries here as well, plenty of others.

They all were stationed at a vase that was hidden in a forest a few miles outside of the more populated areas of Atlas.

Ruby then finished brushing her hair and walked it of the bathroom. She put on some shorts and t-shirt. She took out her scroll, which was given to her by the group, and placed it in her pocket. She put on some boots and walked over to the small table beside her bed.

She reached down and picked up the crystal snowflake necklace that Weiss had given her and she wrapped it around her neck and latched it on. She might have been wearing two necklaces now, but she didn't care. The necklace was her sort of good luck charm, plus it made her feel close to Weiss.

Ruby glanced at the clock and saw the time. 10:37; she was up early today.

She turned around and walked towards the door and walked out. After closing the door she turned and went down the hallway to the left, towards the firing range and the armory.

When she arrived at the armory she looked around at the vast amount of weapons on the walls and racks. Rifles, shotguns, pistols, machine guns lined the walls in great numbers on the left side of the room. In the center of the room layer a long metal table that held the heavier weaponry such as rocket launchers, HMG's, and high caliber rifles. On the right side of the room was the storage lockers for every mercenary. The lockers were large enough to hold their personal weaponry and their combat gear.

Ruby walked to hers and looked inside. Hanging on spare hangers was her gear. First off was a long red cloak. The bottom of the cloak was torn in some parts from years of wear and tear. She had the same Kevlar vest, black cargo pants, black combat boots, and voice modifier as everyone else as well. Her scarf that went over the voice modifier was red, the same as her cloak. Sitting on a small shelf at the top of the locker was her red tinted shades.

Behind the shades, sat her pistol. An FN57 semi-auto. It had her rose symbol engraved into the side of it and the gun was painted crimson. There was a suppressor screwed into the barrel for more silent kills.

Then, standing in the locker, we're her two favorite weapons. The first was an M110 sniper rifle. It had an ACOG scope for medium range and then on the ride of it at an angle was an iron sight for close range combat. It had a vertical grip attached to the bottom of the barrel. There was a suppressor of to the side, in case she ever needed it. It was painted in a black and red pattern.

But, standing right next to that, was her sweetheart as she called it. An M98B, high velocity, customizable, armor piercing sniper rifle. It had the classic long range scope, a bipod for steady aim, and a fixed stock. It too was painted the pattern of red and black. Along the side of the rifle, she had tally marks. There were 47 marks in total.

People all around the base wondered how she had been able to use that weapon without breaking her shoulder at some points.

She grabbed her M110 rifle and a few full magazines. She closed the door to her locker and walked out the door of the armory. She made a right and walked into the indoor firing range that they had. Inside she found one other person.

It was a man named Lie Ren, but everyone just called him Ren. He had black hair with a neon pink streak dyed over his left eye. His eyes were also a neon pink. At the moment he wore a green t-shirt and long black jeans. He was shooting down the range, his weapon, a Glock 18 full-auto pistol. The other one was sitting beside him, he usually used both at one, but must have just been practicing his aim with one. They were both painted green.

When he finished a mag and unloaded, Ruby spoke.

"Morning, Ren." She said stoically.

Ren turned his head and saw Ruby beginning to set up with her rifle. "Hey, Ruby. You're up early." he said.

"Ha-ha. Very funny, Ren." she said. Ruby was known for sleeping in until almost noon, her getting up at ten was unheard of most of the time.

Ren shook his head with a chuckle and loaded another magazine into his pistol and began firing down range again.

Ruby placed down the magazines on the small stand next to her and loaded one of them in. She picked up a pair of ear plugs and put them in her ears. She aimed down range and began to fire. She had nice grouping on the target. All of her shots were hitting dead center of the chest. Halfway through the mag she switched from the chest to the head. The grouping was good there as well.

After another 10 minutes, she had a few shots left in her final mag when she felt her scroll buzzing. She set the weapon down and pulled out her scroll. It was a message from one of the Scottson's, Dan, saying to grab her team and meet in the briefing room.

Ruby quickly fired off her final shots and picked up the spent rounds off the floor. She walked back to the armory after saying 'bye' to Ren and placed her M110 back in her locker and left the armory.

She knew where Yang and Blake would be at this moment. They were in the gym, possibly sparing in hand to hand combat. When she walked upon the door to the gym, she walked in and found just what she was expecting.

Yang and Blake were throwing and blocking punches at and from one another. Yang had brought her leg up in a kick in which Blake had caught, Blake was about to punch Yang when Ruby spoke.

"Ok, you two, hold on for a second." she said. The two stopped their spar and looked towards her.

"Hey, Ruby." Blake said.

"Mornin', sis." Yang said.

"Hey guys. Come on, we're needed in the briefing room." Ruby said.

"What do they need?" Yang asked.

"Don't know. All I got told was to come to the briefing room with you two." Ruby said.

"Alright." Blake said. The three of them then walked out of the gym and began walking towards the briefing room. While walking they passed by other mercenaries who they waved and said "Hi" to.

While walking, there were many things that they were thinking about. What crazy assignment did they have in store for them today? Was it another bounty that needed to be claimed? Or were they going to be stationed somewhere as guards? There were many more questions along with those.

They found the door to the briefing room and walked inside.

Inside they found Dan and his brother, Tyler, staring at some notes. Tyler was looking at them on a laptop and Dan had a plain sheet of paper. They sat at one side of a long table and to their right there was a projector in which screen was currently black. Surrounding the table were chairs that had cushions on them and had wheels on the bottoms.

Ruby, Blake and Yang stood in front of them with their backs straight and their hands behind them.

"Morning, Ladies." Tyler said.

"Good morning, sir's." the three said in unison.

"And, uh, how are you three today?" Dan asked.

"Fine." said Ruby.

"Alright." said Blake

"Great." said Yang.

"Fantastic." Dan said as he put down his notes. "So, today, you three are going to be deployed on an escort assignment. And the father of the person you'll be escorting owns one of the largest gas companies in all of Remnant." he said. "Please, take a seat." he said while gesturing his hand towards three cushy chairs on wheels.

The three sat down on the three seats and looked at the brothers who were looking at the laptop, whispering things into each other's ear and pointing at the screen. Finally, they looked towards the three women.

"So," Yang said. "Who's the poor bastard who we'll be escorting?" she asked.

Tyler pressed a button on his laptop and the projector turned on to reveal an image of a face that was all too familiar to the three women. They hadn't seen her face in years, but it was still familiar. Her white hair was in a sideways ponytail and had sky blue eyes.

Ruby almost had a panic attack at the face of who they were escorting but she didn't want the brothers to know that they knew her, or else they'd put someone else on the task.

"Weiss Schnee." Tyler said. "Daughter of Hareld Schnee who is the owner of the Schnee Gas Company, multi-billionaire, and has one of the largest bounties in our database. Mr. Schnee has asked of us to escort Weiss from their house, known as White Castle, to Tanner Oil HQ in Vale." he said.

"Are they crazy?" Blake asked. "Vale is where the White Fang is based as well and god knows what would happen if they caught wind of her being in that city." she said.

"And that's why they called us." Dan said. "By our guesses, they feel that their regular guards are not enough and they need some extra help. You three will be given a few bullheads and SUV's with heavy armor and weaponry. Along with ten other lower mercenaries for support." he said.

"I originally told that I would send three people, but after looking it over a bit, I decided to send a few extras. You three will be leading this operation though, alright?" Tyler said.

"Yes sir's." the three said.

"Ok, you have one hour then you're leaving. Load up weaponry and get your people ready, make sure your transport is set completely and get going to White Castle. You should arrive by tomorrow morning by the time you leave." Dan said.

"Dismissed." Tyler said.

The three women stood out of their seats and walked out of the briefing room. They walked in complete silence until they got to the armory and started to load up.

"So. This is going to happen?" Blake asked.

"Apparently." Ruby said.

"I guess so." Yang said. "Nervous?" she asked.

"A little." Ruby responded as she changed her shirt from her regular t-shirt to her red shirt which sleeves stopped at her elbows. It had the captain bars on the left sleeve and the logo on the right sleeve.

"Kinda." Blake said as she cocked her M9 suppressed pistol and slid it into the holster at her thigh.

"I'm guessing that you thought that if you said anything or showed any nervous signs in there they would have picked up on it and would have assigned someone else?" Yang asked her sister as she slipped on her black Kevlar vest.

"Yes." Ruby said. She didn't really want to talk about this and she hoped her sister would pick up on it. Thankfully she did.

Ruby switched her pants from her shorts to her black cargo pants. She slipped on the Kevlar vest and slipped the knife into the sheath. She started placing M110 magazines into the bands on the vest and in the pockets of the pants. She loaded a magazine into her FN57, put the safety on and slipped it into the holster. She took her cloak off of its hanger and attached it to her vest. She wrapped the voice modifier loose enough around her neck so she could easily put it up to her mouth when needed along with the scarf over the modifier. She slipped into and tied on her combat boots. She picked up her M110, screwed on the suppressor and loaded in a new magazine. She placed the weapon on safety and slung it behind her right shoulder. She grabbed her pair of red shades and slipped them over her eyes. She shut the door to her locker and turned around.

Blake and Yang were just finishing loading up as well. Blake turned and shut her locker first. Her shades were tinted completely black and her scarf was purple. Her shirt was purple as well. On the left sleeve was a golden lieutenant bar. Her weapon in hand was a UMP-45 SMG. It had a suppressor screwed into the barrel and a regular red dot sight. The most interesting part about her weapons though, was that she didn't have combat knife on her vest. On her back she had a long katana sheath. She learned to use it her second year in the mercenary group and she was quite effective with it.

Yang then shut her locker and turned as well. She had shotgun shells running down the sides of the Kevlar vest instead of magazines. She had more on her long gloves that went up to her elbow. All the shells were different kinds, like buckshot, flechette, frag, and slug. Her shades were tinted gold along with her orange scarf and yellow shirt. The golden lieutenant bar on her shirt had a black background so that it didn't blend in with the shirt. She had her shotgun locked and ready. It was an R870-MCS pump-action shotgun. The pistol that was strapped to her side was a .50 desert eagle. In some situations, Yang was the definition of overkill.

Ruby looked at her two friends and noticed something about Blake. "Blake, your bow." she said.

Blake looked confused for a second then nodded. They couldn't risk Weiss recognizing the bow. Blake opened her locker again and brought out a purple beanie. She took the ribbon out of her hair and slipped on the beanie. It didn't look really professional but it helped. Luckily her cat ears didn't poke out of the top.

They didn't have to worry about Weiss noticing Yang's crazily long hair. When she was in the Vytal military, she had to cut it short and it went down to her upper back now.

"Ready?" Ruby asked.

Yang and Blake nodded. The three of them left the armory and made their way towards the vehicle bay.

When arrived, they found the three SUV's the Scottson's talked about. They were all black and looked heavily armored. Outside they could hear the engines of the bullheads they would be flying in.

Four of the lower mercenaries who they were going to be working with were checking out the vehicles.

"So what do we got here boys?" Yang asked them.

One of them walked up to them. He had a blue beret on his head and blue tinted shades. At the moment his voice modifier was around his neck. His only weapon was a pistol strapped to his thigh. "Well," he said. "The SUV in the middle is the one the person were escorting will be transported in. It has at least 3 inches of steel plating. The other two are for support, there are hatches at the top where our Gatling guns will be mounted." he explained.

"Miniguns? Are you serious?" Ruby asked.

The lower mercenary shrugged. "Hey we got assigned these, don't ask me why." he said. He looked to his watch. "Alright, we're just about ready to go." he said as he walked back towards the vehicles. The three girls walked slightly behind him. "The other six of us are back outside with the bullheads, we're all outside and ready to go when you are." he said as he got in the driver's seat of the first SUV.

Another one of the lower mercenaries joined him and the other two got in the back SUV. Ruby, Blake, and Yang all got into the middle SUV with Blake driving, Yang in the passenger seat, and Ruby in the back and they drove outside onto the small airstrip that they had. They quickly drove up to the three bullheads.

When they did, they were told to come out of the car so that they could hook the cars to the bottom of the bullheads with chains.

Five of the lower mercenaries got into one bullhead, the other five got into another. That left Ruby, Blake and Yang alone in the third one, except for the pilot. The three women got out of the SUV and climbed aboard the bullhead. Shortly after they did they took off and hovered there until they heard the _clunk!_ of the bullhead's cables attaching to the SUV. After a few more minutes, they began to fly off towards White Castle.

"Arrive by tomorrow morning." Dan had said.

Ruby sat down on one of the small seat that were against the wall of the interior. She set her rifle down next to her and closed her eyes.

* * *

She slept for what felt like a minute. But when she opened her eyes and saw Blake standing with her voice modifier and scarf her mouth, she learned otherwise.

"How far are we out?" Ruby asked.

Blake looked at her. Ruby could see her own reflection in Blake's darkly tinted shades. "About three minutes." she said, her voice deep from the modifier.

Ruby nodded and stood up. She pulled her modifier up over her lower half of her face and turned it on. "Good morning." she said as a test. Her voice was very deep now. She pulled the scarf over her modifier and flipped the hood of her cloak to hide her hair. She slept with her shades on so she didn't need to put them on. She grabbed her rifle and slung it over her shoulder again.

She heard Yang stand up and put her facial gear on as well. She flipped on the switch to her modifier and said "Good morning" as well. Her voice deep. She pulled up her scarf and slipped on her shades.

"One minute." the pilot said.

Ruby looked to her friends and nodded. She walked over to the side door of the bullhead and opened it. They were slowing down and below them grassy plains whizzed by.

They finally came to a hover just above a field, there was a road next to it.

"Just follow that road and you'll come up on the manor's driveway." the pilot said. As he said this they felt a jerk and heard another _clunk!_ as the SUV was released from the bullhead.

"Got it." Ruby said. She turned to her friends. "Codenames from now on." she said.

"Understood, Red." they said in unison.

Ruby nodded and jumped from the craft. It was a five foot jump and she landed in a crouch. Yang and Blake landed next to her, also in a crouch.

They stood and the other bullheads were hovering around them.

"Black, you're driving. Yellow, passenger seat. I got the back." Ruby said.

"Ok." said Yang.

"Will do." said Blake.

They got in the SUV and began to drive. It was another 5 minutes when they came upon the large metal gates that belonged to Schnee Manor.

They had arrived right at Weiss' front door and were ready to go in without knocking.

_"I'll be glad to see you again, Weiss,"_ Ruby thought. _"Just this one last time."_

* * *

**AN: Chapter 2, complete! That was the second chapter guys, and I hope you all enjoyed it. I must say, holy shit, what a turnout for the first chapter. I didn't expect it to be _that _good. Well I hope the people who really enjoyed the first chapter, also enjoyed this one. I liked writing this one. Shout out to Shattered Spectre once agian for beta reading this chapter, AND, making the amazing cover photo.**

**Hope you all liked it, and I'll see you all, in the next chapter!**


	3. Chapter 3

Weiss heard in the distance a faint rumble and a roar of engines.

_'They must already be here, that was incredibly faster than we anticipated.'_ she thought.

Her father had given her specific instructions for that when she went on this trip, she would be dressed in business attire. She walked over to her wardrobe and picked out her pure white suit. She never liked wearing it, but she had to for business purposes, or else her father would come up with severe repercussions for disobeying his orders.

She put it on slowly, resisting the urge to throw it in the nearest trash bin. Barely shifting her feet, she made her way over to the fully marble dresser. Pulling her hair back, she put her hair into the familiar off-center ponytail and clipped it with the family crest hairpin that had always been a part of her appearance. Moving to her bed, she sat down and reached for her white heels. When she reached for them, her eyes became level with her bedside table. Sitting on her table was the ruby rose necklace that Ruby had given to her.

Weiss stared at the necklace and took it in her hands. She wrapped the golden chain around her neck and latched on the necklace. She didn't tuck it under though. She pressed her hand slightly to the rose necklace and smiled sadly. She missed Ruby, dearly. But Ruby would never know how much Weiss missed her.

She then looked to a shelf that she had sitting on the other side of the room. Sitting on the middle shelf was a framed picture of her and her friends. The picture was taken during the spring break of their second year at Beacon.

They decided to take a trip to the beach that day. The sun was behind their backs so they had a bright glow illuminating behind them. Ruby and Weiss were holding hands in the center with Blake on the left and Yang in the right. It was later in the day so they had their regular clothes on. T-shirts and shorts. They all had smiles across their faces.

That was no longer true. Her friends were gone; ceasing to exist in this world. Weiss' smiles had turned into an emotionless face, showing none of the pain and suffering hidden beneath her cold expression.

Weiss stood and walked over to the shelf. She took the photo that was sitting on the shelf and she felt a small sad smile break across her face. She slid the photo out of the frame and tucked into the inside pocket of her suit.

She walked back over to her bed, picking up her heels, and sitting down to slip them on her feet. She stood once again and walked out the door of her room and closed the door behind her. Turning down the hallway, she made her way to her father's office. She didn't know whether or not her father knew that the mercenaries were here or not, but if they are, she would be called to his office soon enough.

She walked upon her father's office and knocked on the door.

"Yes?" said Weiss' fathers from inside. There it was. The cold and arrogant voice of the most hated and powerful man to be known.

"Father, may I come in?" Weiss asked.

"You may." he said.

Weiss opened the door to the office and saw him sitting at his desk. The usual papers, computer, tablet, and coffee all resting in front of him on the desk.

"What are you here for?" he asked, not exactly looking at her.

"I believe that the mercenaries that you requested have arrived." Weiss said.

"What makes you say that?" he asked.

"I heard what sounded to be an armored vehicle outside, and I'm sure you're not having any visitors today, especially not the military."

"Hmm... Well, it has been only under 24 hours so I-" Mr. Schnee was cut off by his intercom.

"Mr. Schnee," the phone was on speaker so Weiss heard this as well. "A black SUV has arrived and the three occupants of the vehicle say that they have an audience with you. They're armed, and they won't reveal their identities. They keep saying they're mercenaries. Are they the ones that you spoke of last night?" the guard asked. It was obvious what the answer was, but the guard sounded nervous.

Mr. Schnee sat there for a moment, pondering over the situation. "Let them in, and have them led to my office. We'll be waiting." Mr. Schnee said. He turned off the phone and looked towards Weiss. "I guess you were right." he said.

Weiss nodded and sat down in the chair in front of his desk. Another five minutes passed until a knock was heard at the door.

"Come in." Mr. Schnee said.

The door opened to reveal one of the butlers that worked in the house. "Mr. Schnee. These three women are here to see you."

"Women?" Mr. Schnee asked.

The butler opened his mouth to say something else, but was silenced when one of the mercenaries pushed past him. The woman had blonde hair that went down to her upper back. She had golden shades covering her eyes and a golden scarf around her neck. She had Kevlar armor and cargo pants. There was a name plate on the left side of her vest. "Yellow" it said. A shotgun was wrapped around her back on a band and a large pistol was at her side.

"You got a problem with us being women?" She asked. She must have had a voice modifier under her scarf because her voice was deep.

"Relax, Yellow." said another modified voice. From around the door came another girl who had black hair and a purple beanie covering her head. She had black tinted shades and a purple scarf. She wore the same armor and pants as the other. The name plate on her chest read, "Black". Her weapon looked like a small machine gun and a smaller pistol was at her side. A sword blade was on her back as well.

"How do you expect me to relax when this guy just insulted us?" Yellow asked

"Deal with it, Yellow." said a final modified voice. She stepped into the room with light footsteps. She wore red tinted shades and a red scarf. The rest of her head was covered by a cloak hood that was attached to a cape that went down to her lower legs. Again, she had the same Kevlar armor and cargo pants like the other name plate on her chest read, "Red". A long rifle was on her back and a pistol was at her side as well.

"I understand that you took offense, but we must show respect for it is his household," she said, "Besides, he's paying."

Although she sounded annoyed. Weiss guessed that she took the statement to heart as well and was only playing nice.

"Mr. Schnee, nice to meet you." She said as she walked up to his desk, standing to the right of Weiss, who was still seated. Red outstretched her hand for a handshake, in which Mr. Schnee returned worryingly. "I'm Red, my real name is highly classified so don't bother asking. Just know I'll be leading this operation. Those are my two lieutenants Black and Yellow. Same rules apply." She said.

"Yes, thank you." Mr. Schnee said as he let go of her hand. "This is my daughter, Weiss. She will be the one that you are escorting." He said, gesturing his hand towards Weiss.

Red turned her head towards Weiss and stared at her intently. So far, no sign she had known. Not even by the obvious color scheme of her team's clothes, or even the familiar attitudes, though Ruby's had changed over her time as a mercenary.

"Hello." Weiss said, unsure of why she was getting such look.

Red simply nodded towards her without a word. She then looked back Weiss' father.

"She'll be in good hands, Mr. Schnee. You have our word, you made a good choice in calling our organization. Even better, you got the best team ." she said.

"Well, the group did come highly recommended by other companies, so I took a gamble and gave you a call. I will be holding you to your promise on keeping her safe." he said.

"Not to worry, sir." Red said.

Mr. Schnee nodded at the mercenary. "Well then," he said. "Best of luck. Weiss, stay safe and out of trouble. I hope that you come back in one piece. Make sure you show the owners of Tanner Oil the upmost respect and that you don't say anything wrong. Just make sure to get the deal." he said.

Weiss looked to her father and nodded at him. "I will not fail you." she said.

Mr. Schnee gave Weiss a nod. "Alright, off with you four. Don't be late." he said, while waving his hand and turning his attention back to the papers on the desk in front of him as though they were just going to school.

The three mercenaries began to walk towards the door, they stopped and waited for Weiss as she gave a formal bow, as she was in a suit. She then turned and walked out the large double door of the office. Weiss stood between all three of the mercenaries. Red was in front of her, Black was to her left, and Yellow to her right.

They must have memorized the rout to the front door on their way in because they looked to know where they were going, as if they had lived there for years. Finally, they walked out the large front doors of White Castle.

Weiss saw in front of her, at the bottom of the small set of steps that the manor had in front of it, a large black SUV. It looked slightly larger than a regular SUV so it must have been upgraded slightly. Black and Red walked around to the left side of the car, Black driving and Red in the back. Yellow opened the door to Weiss' seat and waited for her to get in. When Weiss was in the SUV, Yellow shut the door and climbed into her own seat in the front.

As soon as Yellow's door was shut, she heard Red next to her talking. "Nevermore, this is Beowulf. We have the VIP and we are en route to your location. Five minutes, over." she said. Weiss quickly realized that she was talking into an earpiece when a response tone came from Red's ear.

Weiss heard the person on the other end, mixed with static, but still audible. "Roger that, Beowulf. We are currently waiting for you at the LZ. Over." Said the person on the other end.

"Copy your last, see you then." Red said, into the earpiece again.

The car began moving and out of the main driveway to White Castle. They passed the guard house that was by the main gate as they drove out on to the main road.

Although, when they passed the guard house, they didn't see the guard pull out his cellphone and take a picture of the SUV as it drove down the road. He quickly sent off the picture to his superiors and dialed a number.

"Hello. Yes, it's me. They just left. Prep all teams in Vale, and assemble all our forces that we have near White Castle. Yes, now." he said and he quickly shut the phone. He grinned to reveal large canine teeth. He then removed his cap that was atop his head and two wolf ears pricked up as they were uncovered.

Back in the SUV, things were relatively quiet. The only noise was from the engine of the vehicle.

At some point, Yellow spoke up, bored with the silence.

"I don't get it." she said.

"Are you talking to me?" Weiss asked.

"Yeah, I don't get it. What's with you and your dad? You're going to a business meeting in a city which is home to two of the biggest criminal organizations. One of said organizations is the White Fang. They have a huge grudge against your dad and want his head. They're extremely dangerous and could possibly lead to the deaths of one of us, one of our other team members, or, the worst, you, and he sent you off like you were going spend a weekend at your grandmother's place. What's up with that?" Yellow asked, thoroughly confused.

Weiss shrugged. "My father is willing to do anything that will get his company power. That's all he thinks about, gaining power. He would put anything at risk if it meant getting more of it. As you can see, he's putting me at great risk. All he sees me as at some points is a pawn. I've never wanted to be a part of this company. I never did. If anything, I would be as far away from that house as possible." she said.

"Then why don't you leave?" Yellow asked.

"Because every time I try to, he or one of his guards catches me and sends me back. After that the security of the place is increased and it gets harder for my attempts. Even if I did escape, I would have practically nowhere to go. I have other family members, but they would alert my father as to where I was." Weiss said.

"Friends?" Black asked.

Weiss lowered her head. She shook her head for a "No".

Black looked in the rear view mirror and saw her head lowered. "I see." she said.

"What happened to them?" Red asked, already knowing the true answer.

"The few I had, and the one I cared about most, are all gone."

"Will you ever be able to speak to them again?"

"Not that type of gone, Red. I mean dead and gone." Weiss looked down at her feet, trying not to show how hard thinking about her lost friends really was.

"I'm sorry." Red said in a forced flat tone.

"Don't worry about it. There're some things in life that teach us a lesson, and it's the hardest of them all. I won't go into details." Weiss said. She began to look out the window to show she was done talking.

"Alright." Red said, finally knowing the extent of the damage she had caused by disappearing.

Then a few seconds later they came upon a sight that made Weiss slightly nervous. They turned off the road and into a large field. At the center of the field there were two other SUV's in between a bullhead that was landed and waiting for them. Two other bullheads were hovering above the three grounded vehicles. The two SUV's that were on the ground had a large gun on the top of them. Weiss saw that their barrels were spinning at a fast pace.

"Looks like they decided to land the other two in order to cover us." Yellow said from the front.

Black pulled the SUV up in front of the bullhead so that Weiss' door was facing the small airship, she then turned off the engine and unlocked all the doors. Yellow was the first out and she opened Weiss' door open for her. Weiss stepped out of the vehicle and gave a nod of thanks to Yellow. Red was walking in front of Weiss and was the first one aboard. She extended her hand towards Weiss who took it. When Weiss was aboard, she gave Red a nod of thanks as well. She took a seat on one of the benches that were on the wall.

After another few minutes, they received word that three other mercenaries were working on getting the cables attached to the bullheads and they would take off in two minutes.

Those two minutes went by fast, when they heard an "all good" over the radio of the bullhead. The engines of the bullheads roared to full power and they took off towards Vale.

Weiss closed her eyes and began to fall asleep, letting the sound of the engines lull her to sleep.

* * *

Weiss awoke to the same sound of engines. There was very little noise going on throughout the ship. Weiss looked to her left and saw Red and Yellow towards the back of the bullhead. They had their backs turned towards Weiss and were whispering to each other. They each had one of their hands to their mouths so Weiss could tell that they had their scarves down and took off their modifiers so that they could speak without their voices being projected.

Weiss looked to her right and saw that Black was sitting with the pilot in the cockpit. Weiss stood up and walked over to the opening that led to the cockpit she looked out the window and saw that the sun was just going down. "How long have I been out?" Weiss asked.

Black turned her head towards Weiss. Weiss couldn't see her expression, but she guessed that she was surprised. "About nine hours." she said. That surprised Weiss greatly, she rarely slept that long before. "We're about 15 minutes from Vale. When we're on the ground, we're going to find a hotel and check in for a night and go to Tanner Oil in the afternoon. We've gotten word that we're scheduled for 2 o'clock." she said.

Weiss nodded and looked out the window again. She saw the upcoming city of Vale, her old home. This city always made her feel more at home than White Castle.

"We're going to have to land just outside the city. The streets are two narrow for us to land in there, and we don't want people to panic over military grade airships landing in their backyards." the pilot said. He was wearing a regular flight suit and had a pair of shades hiding his eyes and an aviator headset over his ears.

"What about the ships themselves?" Weiss asked. "Where are you going to put them?"

"That's none of your concern." the pilot said. "But, don't worry about it."

Weiss nodded and turned away from the cockpit. She saw that Red and Yellow were now sitting across from each other. Weiss sat back down in the seat where she was sitting before.

She sat there in silence for the final 15 minutes of their journey. At one point, Red stood and walked over to the side door of the bullhead. The bullhead began to slow down and she opened the large door. The cool air of the coming night drifted into the inside of the bullhead.

Weiss heard multiple audible Clunk's and felt the bullhead jerk slightly. Yellow stood as well and Black emerged from the cockpit. Weiss took this as a hint to stand also and she stood from her seat.

The pilot landed the bullhead and the mercenaries jumped out of the airship. They had their weapons drawn and were scanning the surrounding landscape, searching for anyone that could pose as a threat. Red stood by the door and helped Weiss off the bullhead.

Weiss heard the other mercenaries that had been in the other bullheads to her left and right. They were all shouting orders to each other and yelled out "Clear!" to one another. Weiss turned to Red.

"Wait, I heard over the phone that they would only be sending three people, I think I see about 15 mercenaries." Weiss said.

Red shrugged at her. "Plans change." she said. She knocked on the side of the bullhead and the door closed itself. Then the bullhead took off towards the sky, with the other two close behind. "Everyone, in your designated SUV's!" Red shouted out. "We're going to be moving towards Hotel Vale!" she said.

There was a series of people saying "Yes, Ma'am" and "Understood" as the mercenaries went their own SUV's.

"Mrs. Schnee, you're riding with us." Red said to her.

"Ok." Weiss said. It was the same set up as before when she was picked up, she sat next to Red while Black and Yellow sat in the front. They drove onto one of the back roads and from that they found the main highway. All three SUV's driving in a single file line down the large stretch of highway.

30 minutes later they were in the city. Tall buildings all around them and traffic around every corner.

Yellow pointed towards the right then. "There's the hotel." she said. Black nodded and turned into the parking lot of the hotel, right behind the first SUV. Weiss watched as the mercenaries left their vehicles and began to scan the area. They had their weapons lowered and were ready.

Yellow opened the door for Weiss and she stepped out. Weiss looked up towards the hotel they would be staying at for the night. It was a ten story building and had a vanilla color to it. There were red awnings above the main entrance to the hotel and over the small diner that was attached to it.

The large group of people walked into the lobby of the hotel and Red walked up to the person at the front desk. The women had her brown hair in a tight bun and had blue eyes. She wore a gray suit with the company logo on it and a name tag that said "Sarah". "Can I help you?" she asked. She sounded nervous.

Weiss didn't blame her. If she was working at a hotel and a bunch of people with masks and guns walked into the lobby, she would get scared to.

"Yes, we have a reservation under 'Red'." Red said.

Sarah typed a few keys on the computer next to her and looked to Red. "Are you all going to be staying in the suite?" she asked.

"No, just her." Red said while jabbing her thumb towards Weiss. "The rest of us will be around the hotel running a security detail." she said.

"Ok," Sarah said. "If I may say, Please don't let any of our other guests be uncomfortable with the weapons that you and the others are carrying." she said.

"No promises." Yellow said.

Sarah seemed to get more nervous but nodded quickly and handed Red the room key, who in turn handed it to Weiss.

Red then turned to the rest of the mercenaries and gave out orders. "Alright, you five," she said while pointing towards a few of the other mercenaries. "Will hold security here in the lobby with Yellow. The other five of you will be with me and Black upstairs on Mrs. Schnee's floor. Report anything you see that we should know about and keep your eyes open, it's going to be a long night."

"Yes, Ma'am." said the mercenaries.

Red led Weiss and the other six mercenaries to the elevators and they went up to their floor, which was the ninth floor. As they walked through the halls of the floor, Red was giving orders to the other mercenaries, telling them where to keep guard. There was one by the elevator, one in the stair case, one by a large window, and two others roaming the halls.

Red and Black were going to be standing outside the door of Weiss' suite, so if she needed them, she could just ask. Weiss gave her goodnights to the two mercenaries and walked into the room.

She took off her suit jacket and shoes. She laid down on the large queen sized bed that was in the room. It was so cushy, she completely forgot that she had just slept for nine hours straight and drifted off into sleep, once again.

* * *

**AN: Chapter 3, complete! Well guys, I hope you all enjoyed the third chapter to this story. As you can see, things are about to go down. I want you to know that this story will have a good balance between action and drama. I might have to change the rating to M later on, but we'll see. Sorry I didn't get this chapter out earlier, I was kinda sick and it affected my writing a bit. Shout out to Shattered Spectre for beta reading, once again. Thanks you all for reading, reviewing, favoriting, and following. Also, thank you for 1,000 views! In just two chapters as well! That's amazing guys, thank you all. I'll see you all, in the next chapter.**


	4. Chapter 4: Part 1

For Ruby, the night went by slowly.

She and Blake stood outside the door of the hotel room that at the moment, contained Weiss Schnee.

Ruby had to go against every fiber in her being from throwing off her disguise and run up to Weiss and hug her. To let her know that she was still alive.

Ruby had to take the necklace that Weiss gave her. She did when they were walking through the halls of White Castle. She took it off because it would have risked Weiss identifying them, majorly. It currently was hidden safely in one of the pockets of her cargo pants.

Ruby had noticed that the disappearance of herself had clearly affected Weiss. She obviously knew about the deaths of herself and her friends. No question about it. Weiss had acted sort of coldly towards the mercenaries. Ruby had worked so hard to melt that cold, icy exterior of Weiss' in college. Now it looked as if she had built that exterior up again.

She and Blake had gotten no bad reports from the mercenaries downstairs or the other mercenaries on their floor as well. They exchanged small talk with the two mercenaries that were roaming the halls at some points, other times they would talk to each other. And other time it would just be a comfortable silence, trying to focus on their jobs.

She had heard over the radio that the bullheads were landed at a small base that H&H had set up in Vale. It was only a staging area though. For mercenaries that were on long journeys and needed a place to stay for a night, or to park their vehicles. The bullheads would be giving a bird's eye view from above when the meeting with Tanner Oil was taking place.

Ruby was lost in her thoughts for the rest of the night. It wasn't until the sun was peeking through the window at the end of their hallway did she realize just how fast the night went. But to her, it was still one of her longest nights.

"Hey, Red." she heard over the radio. She learned over the years to tell the difference between the modified voices of her friends and allies. She figured to be Yang who was talking at the moment. "There's a breakfast buffet down here. Might want to let Weiss know in case she's hungry." Yang said.

"Thanks, will do." Ruby said. She slung her rifle over her shoulders and turned towards Black. "Going in." she said.

Black nodded for an 'alright'. Ruby turned towards the door and knocked before entering. She had gotten one of the key cards from a lower mercenary earlier, saying that it was 'just in case' before he walked off.

Ruby swiped the card through the reader and the door unlocked. Ruby turned the handle and walked in. Inside, she saw Weiss lying in her bed. She was breathing softly as the blankets on the bed raised and lowered with each breath.

A memory flashed through Ruby's mind. One in which she was lying in Weiss' arms and they were in the same bed together. Ruby could feel Weiss' breaths against her as she slumbered.

Ruby shook her head slightly, trying to ignore the memory for now. She walked up to Weiss and shook her slightly. "Mrs. Schnee." Ruby said gently. She shook Weiss again. "Mrs. Schnee." Ruby said again, but slightly louder.

Weiss then groaned as she stared to move. "What is it...? Which one are you?" she asked in a tired voice. Her eyes were still closed so she could not see which mercenary was trying to wake her. She probably could not tell who it was also because of the voice modifier.

"I-It's Ru-" Ruby caught her tongue quickly and stopped talking. Noticing how she almost said her own name. "It's Red, Mrs. Schnee." Ruby said.

"What do you need, Red?" Weiss asked, her eyes still closed. Luckily she hadn't noticed the almost slip of the name.

"The hotel has provided breakfast downstairs and you must get ready soon for your meeting with Tanner Oil." Ruby said.

Weiss groaned again. "Very well, give me a half hour to get ready." Weiss said.

"Of course, Mrs. Schnee." Ruby said. She turned away from the bed and walked back out the door. She turned to Blake once she got out of the room and closed the door. "Get the others around the floor and bring them down for some breakfast, you look like you can use some and I'm sure that the others are hungry as well." Ruby said.

"What about you?" Blake asked.

"I'll get something later and stay watch here. Go on, get some food." Ruby said.

Blake shrugged and began to move down the hallway. "Whatever you say, Red." Blake said.

The time passed as Ruby waited patiently for Weiss to come out of the hotel room. That was one thing that Ruby learned greatly in her time at H&H. Patience. It was something that was key in most of the jobs that she was assigned on. Whether it was waiting for a person who had a bounty in which she was trying to claim, or merely waiting for something to get done in general.

Finally, Weiss emerged from the hotel room. Her white suit didn't seem to wrinkle over the night, seeing as though she slept in it.

Ruby could see the rose necklace around her neck, which made Ruby even more tempted to reveal herself to Weiss. Ruby sighed slightly, and spoke to Weiss sadly. But the sadness in her voice wasn't picked up due to the modifier. "Good morning, Mrs. Schnee." Ruby said.

"Good morning, Red." Weiss said back. "You said there was breakfast downstairs?" Weiss asked.

"Yes, right this way." Ruby said. She began walking towards the elevators with Weiss just behind her. They got into the elevator and went down to the main floor. Exiting the elevator, there was a dining room to their right and they saw a few of the other mercenaries were still eating. The ones that were eating had their masks and voice modifiers off but still wore their shades even though they were indoors.

Ruby saw Blake and Yang at a table towards the corner of the room. They seemed to be just finishing up and were quickly putting on their modifiers and scarves. If Weiss had seen them, she might have recognized them. While Weiss was getting her food, Ruby sat down with Blake and Yang.

"So, sleep well?" Yang asked as Ruby sat down.

"Oh yeah, great. I had a dream as if I was awake. All night. I think was on guard duty, or something." Ruby said in obvious sarcasm.

Yang chuckled slightly. "Yeah, I think I had the same dream as you." she said.

Just then, Weiss sat down at the table they were sitting at. She had a bagel with some cream cheese and a glass of orange juice. The table went to silence as she was eating. Then, Weiss spoke. "I have a favor to ask you three, and you might say no to It." she said.

"It really depends on what you will be asking us, Mrs. Schnee." Ruby said.

"Alright." Weiss exhaled briefly. "I wanted to ask if you can take me to Vale National Cemetery." she said.

Ruby stiffed slightly in surprise at what Weiss had said and she could see that Blake and Yang had as well. The three of them knew that Vale National Cemetery was where their "bodies" were buried. "W-why do you need to go there?" Ruby asked, even though she might have already known the answer.

Weiss looked as if she was deep in thought, probably thinking whether she should actually tell them why she wanted to go, or to lie to them. Eventually, she exhaled once more. "I want to see some people there. Who I haven't seen in quite a few years." she said sadly.

Ruby looked to Blake and Yang. They must have been thinking the same thing she was, that Weiss wanted to see their graves. Ruby turned her head back to Weiss. "Yeah," she said. "I think we can make that happen. How many graves would you be visiting?" she asked. "Just curious."

"Three." Weiss said. "Three old friends." she raised her glass of orange juice and took a sip.

Ruby nodded at Weiss. "Ok." she said.

Weiss looked at Ruby and smiled sadly. "Thank you." she said.

After that, the rest of the breakfast was eaten in silence, except for the other mercenaries who were still eating at some of the other tables in the room.

* * *

About two hours passed and all mercenaries were set and ready. Five of the mercenaries were outside. Three of them were checking the vehicles for any explosive devices or unknown trackers. The other two were looking around at buildings and suspicious vehicles. Ruby looked at the clock that was above the checkout desk and saw that it was 10:29.

Finally, Ruby heard over her earpiece that everything was good and that they could bring out Weiss.

Ruby looked over at Weiss who was sitting at one of the couches that were in the lobby of the hotel. "Mrs. Schnee," she said. "It's time to go."

Weiss didn't look at her and just nodded. She stood up from the couch and began walking towards the door where a few of the lower mercenaries we're waiting to escort her towards the car.

Ruby looked over at the checkout desk and saw Blake finishing the up the transaction. The person behind the desk was different. The woman from last night must have been the night shift. Now, it was a man with light red hair. Ruby could see a fox tail flicking around behind him, meaning he was a Faunus. Ruby had theslight suspicion that he might have been a white fang worker. She didn't want to cause any trouble at the moment so she just eyed the fox Faunus from across the room.

Blake then stepped away from the desk and walked over towards the door. Ruby also began moving towards the door. "Alright people, let's get moving!" she said to the other mercenaries who were in the lobby. They all grabbed the weapons and walked out with her.

When she walked out the door, the heat hit her like a brick wall. It was a perfect day outside and there wasn't a single cloud in the sky. The sounds of cars blaring their horns and some police sirens echoed throughout the streets of the large city.

All the mercenaries got in their respective vehicles and they drove out into the streets. Luckily, it wasn't as crowded because rush hour was over at this point.

Ruby had told all the other mercenaries that they were going to be stopping at Vale National Cemetery earlier. They all seemed slightly confused at first but they all practically shrugged it off when she mentioned that it was a favor for Weiss.

It was about an hour drive total when they finally got to the cemetery. All the mercenaries got out of the vehicles and slung them over their shoulders for respect.

Yang opened the door for Weiss again and she stepped out.

"Ok," Ruby said. "Me, Black and Yellow will be going in with Mrs. Schnee. The rest of you stay out here and watch the vehicles. We'll be out soon." she said to the other mercenaries.

"Yes, Ma'Am." they all said. A few of them began walking around the parking lot, a few sat on the hoods of the cars, and a few simply sat next to the car and shut their eyes. Ruby couldn't blame the ones that rested their eyes. They did not sleep all night and were probably running on fumes at this point.

She, Blake, Yang and Weiss walked through the cemetery. There were a few other people there as well. Most people carried bouquets of flowers, some other carried small framed pictures of the one that was lost.

In the distance, Ruby heard the sound of gunfire. But it wasn't gunfire from behind them. It was towards the right of them, and it was in unison. It was the sound of the 21 gun salute.

The first grave they came upon, was Yang's. The only thing inscribed on the grave was her name. There was a picture propped up against her grave, it was of her and three other people, all in military combat gear. They were all sitting on or around amilitary Humvee. There was one guy with short brown sitting next to Yang on the Humvee. Ruby couldn't see the other two people's features because they had their helmets on.

But they weren't the only ones visiting her grave that day. Standing in front of Yang's grave was a man with short brown hair. He had on military dress suit and had a dress hat tucked under his left arm. He had a straight posture and had his right hand in a salute. Ruby noticed, it was the man sitting next to Yang in the picture.

Ruby glanced at Yang and saw that she was fighting the urge to run up to the man who was standing there.

Before Ruby could say anything, the man dropped his salute and walked away. He either didn't notice them there, or he didn't care that they were there.

Weiss then walked up to the grave and stared at the grave for a few minutes. She must have been having a mental conversation with Yang. Ruby saw a tear streak down Weiss' face. Weiss quickly wiped away the tear and turned away from the grave and walked off with the three mercenaries close behind. Ruby glanced back at Yang and saw her head lowered slightly.

After a few more minutes of walking, the came upon Blake's grave. Blake's grave also only had her name written on it. Her grave also had a picture sitting next to it as well. It was a picture of Blake, Yang, and Ruby after their graduation from the SWAT training.

Weiss looked at the grave as she did with Yang's. Seeming to have a mental conversation with the grave. More tears trickled out of Weiss' eyes as she looked at the grave.

Ruby looked at Blake towards her left and saw that she wasn't even looking at the grave, or Weiss. Instead she gazed off in the distance, trying her best not to be here at this time. Ruby heard footsteps and saw Weiss was walking again, with her head hung slightly low.

Ruby felt herself getting more and more nervous. She knew that the next grave they would be visiting was he's. She was nervous to see what the reaction out of Weiss would be.

It took longer than expected to find the grave, but they eventually found it. There was a small bouquet of roses next to her grave and also had a picture next to it. It was of Ruby in her police uniform. It was a close up image of her so it showed justher head and upper torso. She had a big smile on her face and her silver eyes shinned brightly.

Ruby watched as Weiss stepped in front of the grave. And she stared, and stared, and stared. Tears finally began to flow freely from Weiss' eyes. She didn't even try to attempt to wipe them away. Ruby heard Weiss mumble under her breath. "And you told me to be careful..." she said.

'Yeah, I did.' Ruby said mentally. Ruby felt her hand reaching up towards her mask but she forced it back down. She walked over towards Weiss and placed her hand on Weiss' shoulder. "I'm sure they're all... Alright, Mrs. Schnee. They might be watching you right now, thanking you for... Visiting them." Ruby said.

Weiss was slightly shaking as she nodded. "Yeah. Yeah I'm sure they are." she said. Weiss then shook of Ruby's hand and knelt down in front of the grave. It too only had Ruby's name on it. There was no "Here lies" or "RIP" on the stone. They all made it that way because they weren't dead, yet.

Weiss looked intently at the grave and whispered three words. Ruby wasn't sure if Blake or Yang heard from where they were standing but Ruby heard what she said. "I love you." she whispered to the grave.

Ruby's eyes widened under her shades. Weiss still loved her? Ruby should have been happy to hear that but she was also saddened by it. Because after this, Ruby would never see Weiss again. No matter what. Ruby fought back the tears that were trying to break through.

Ruby didn't notice that Weiss had stood and was walking back towards the parking lot. Blake and Yang followed behind. Ruby glanced at the grave and felt somewhat tempted to kick it over. It was just a big lie.

Everything over the past three years felt like a big lie.

* * *

**AN: First off, I'm sorry that this chapter was delayed slightly. I'm at the moment going to be moving soon and we're getting the house ready, I got finals coming up, etc. Anyway, enough excuses. I hope you all liked the chapter. If you haven't figured it out yet, the chapters go in pattern from Weiss' P.O.V. To Ruby's. Although, since this was chapter 4 Part 1, the next chapter will still be in Ruby's.** **Thanks you, so much to all who have reviewed, followed, and favorited this story. The next chapter might take a whole to write, and I'm just going to say, get ready for the action. Thank you all, and I'll see you all, in the next chapter.**


	5. Chapter 4: Part 2

The drive back into the city was ridden in silence. The only thing to be heard was the occasional horn of another car, or the radio that was on very low.

Ruby sat in the back, next to Weiss, with her head hung low.

Things were flying all around inside of her head. She had no idea what to do. She wanted to reveal to Weiss that she was still alive, because that would have good things come out of it. But there would also be many repercussions. If her identity was revealed and it got out that she was alive, everyone in H&H could also be discovered and everyone in the entire organization being compromised. Everyone in the company were in the records as dead. There would also be the possibility of the brothers kicking Ruby out of the company. She would be forced to take on a new identity and live in the civilian world.

Ruby didn't think she would be able to do that. She had been in H&H for so long, she might not be able to get used to civilian life. Over the years, she might have even developed PTSD or something like it.

If she was discovered by Weiss, Blake and Yang might also have the chance of being found out by her as well. Ruby knew that Blake and Yang each really enjoyed being in H&H. What would happen to the three of them if they are all forced to take on new identities? Would they blame Ruby for getting them all kicked out?

Some many things were going throughout Ruby's head. She had been so preoccupied with her thoughts, she didn't notice that there was a voice coming through her earpiece.

"Beowulf, this is Ursa. Come in. Over." the voice sounded annoyed, they had obviously been trying to reach her for a few minutes now.

"This is Beowulf. Good afternoon Ursa. What do you need? Over." she said.

"'Bout time, Red." The voice said. "It's Knight. Bosses put me in comm. room for a while. I'm supposed to watch over you guys in a way. What is your status? Over."

"We're good over here. HVP is still safe and secure, we're currently en route to Tanner Oil. ETA... Uh... Black, what's our ETA?" Ruby asked Blake.

"ETA about twenty minutes, if this damn traffic would move!" she said, being slightly annoyed by the heavy afternoon traffic.

"ETA twenty minutes, Knight. Over." Ruby said.

"Alright. Our sources have no reports of White Fang movement at this time. So I guess you're in the clear for now. We'll let you know if anything changes. Knight out." Knight said over the radio.

Those twenty minutes went fast and soon the small convoy of black SUV's pulled in front of the main building of Tanner oil. It was about twenty to twenty-five stories tall and had a sandy color to it along with a pointed green roof.

'Great.' Ruby thought. 'No place to land the bullheads if we need them.'

A doorman walked up to the car as the mercenaries got out of the vehicles. He had short black hair and green eyes. He was wearing a gray work suit and had a name tag on the suit jacket read 'Jonathan'.

"Excuse me." he said. "But who are you? Do you have an appointment? Who are you here for? Why do you have weapons?" he started spewing off questions one after another. Yang opened her door and stepped out.

Looking at the man she said. "I think this will answer all those questions." she said as she reached for the door handle for Weiss's door. She opened the door and Weiss stepped out. Ruby stepped out of her door as well and walked over onto the sidewalk quickly.

The doorman's eyes widened slightly and his lips formed an O when he saw Weiss. He pointed down the street for a second. "There's a parking garage there, I'll let them know that you are Miss Schnee's transportation and guards and they will let you through." he said.

Ruby nodded at the door man and turned towards the other mercenaries who were waiting her orders.

"Ok," she started. "Black, you and the other two drivers will take the cars to the parking garage. Make sure that you keep an eye on the cars and look out for anything and anyone else. Yellow, you will be with a few others and guard the lobby. I'll take the rest up and guard the area where the meeting will take place. I'm sure this place has security but make sure you check people that go up in the elevators. I want this place to be locked down the entire time we're here. Sound good?" she asked.

She got a response of multiple "Yeah"'s and "Yes, Ma'am"'s. The driver of the front vehicle honked the horn slightly and the small convoy drove towards the parking garage.

The group of mercenaries turned towards the doorway of the building and walked in. They walked behind Weiss as she was being given a small rundown by the doorman of what the situation was. Apparently they were ten minutes early but that was alright because Mr. Tanner and a few of his associates were ready and waiting for her. The meeting would be on the 21st floor and there was room for the mercenaries who would be going up there to sit and relax.

Ruby didn't think she would be able to "relax". The things going through her head were stressing her out and she was at the point of a possible panic attack.

The doorman told a woman behind the desk to tell the people at the parking garage to let the SUV's in. They walked over to an elevator and the doorman pressed a button. It must have only been a few floors up because the elevator doors opened shortly after. Inside was an elevator operator who had on a similar suit as the doorman. He gave them a smile.

"Going up?" he asked. He probably asked that question a lot, he also must have not been doing this job for long because he made it sound like it was joke.

'He'll get tired of it eventually.' Ruby thought. She turned and pointed towards four of the other mercenaries that were behind her. "You four are with us upstairs, let's go." she said. They all walked onto the elevator with Weiss. The doorman stayed out of the elevator.

"There will be someone upstairs waiting for you." he said. He turned and walked back towards the main entrance.

"See you all when you get back down." Yang said as the doors to the elevator closed. The doorman must have known what floor they needed beforehand because he pressed the button to the 21st floor.

About a minute later, the doors opened up and they all walked out. The elevator operator gave them another smile as the doors closed.

Ruby looked throughout the room they stepped in and found it actually to be a quite comfortable atmosphere. The room was dim and smooth jazz music played through hidden speakers. There was a large desk over to their right, a woman worked at the desk, typing away at a computer that sat on the desk. To the left, there was a small sitting area with a few couches, chairs, and a table. On the table was a small radio for anyone who wanted to listen to a news broadcast as they waited. There was a soft carpeting on the floor that made your feet sink into slightly. On the other side of the room, opposite of the elevator, were two large wooden doors. On each door was a giant T monogrammed directly in the center.

The woman behind the desk looked up and starred at the group that just walked out of the elevator. She saw Weiss and she stood from her desk. She walked over to Weiss and she outstretched her hand for a hand-shake. Weiss took the hand-shake as the woman spoke.

"Hello, Miss Schnee. I'm Patricia. Mr. Tanner's assistant. Mr. Tanner is currently waiting for you on the other side of the doors, so I can buzz you in. Ready?" she asked.

Weiss nodded. "Yes, please let him know I'm here." she said.

"Very well." said Patricia as she walked back over to her desk. She pressed a button on the desk and quiet buzz was heard along with a click to signify that the room was now unlocked. "Mr. Tanner, Miss Schnee is here for the visit." she said through the buzzer to the office.

"She may come in." they heard from the buzzer.

Patricia looked up at Weiss. "You may go in." she said while smiling. Most of the workers in this building didn't seemed to be bothered by the small amount of mercenaries with weapons that could kill in an instant.

Weiss nodded and began to walk towards the door with Ruby close behind. "You four stay in here." Ruby said to the other mercenaries.

Patricia looked to Ruby. "I'm sorry, but you have to stay out here as well." she said.

"Why?" Ruby asked.

"This is a private meeting between Miss Schnee, Mr. Tanner and Mr. Tanner's associates."

"Well I'm one of Miss Schnee's associates, so let me in."

"I'm sorry, but you're not allowed to be in there."

"I have to go in there, I'm one of her guards!"

"It's ok, Red." Weiss said. "Stay out here."

Ruby looked at Weiss. "Miss Schnee, I must stay by your side for your upmost protection."

"I'll be fine, Red." Weiss said with a small smile. "I'll be fine."

Ruby sighed. "Very well Miss Schnee."

Weiss nodded. She turned back towards the door, opened it and walked into the room where Mr. Tanner was. As soon as she was inside the door closed automatically. Ruby couldn't hear a thing from the inside either.

'Sound proof. Great.' Ruby thought. Ruby pointed to one of the other mercenaries. "You, watch the elevator. The rest of you, find something to do." Ruby said. There were no windows in the room and there looked to be no other doors in the room leading to more halls within the building, only a staircase a little off from the elevator.

Ruby walked over to one of the chairs and sat down it. It was so dim in the room that she could barely see. She took off her shades and placed it down on the table in front of her. She grabbed the radio that was on the table, turned it a news channel and used it as some background noise. There was already jazz music playing but Ruby was never really a fan of jazz.

She took off her scarf and voice modifier so that she could breathe some air and not be suffocated slightly, she also dropped to hood down. She looked over to Patricia who was at her desk once again, typing on her computer. "Hey!" Ruby said over to her. Patricia looked up and saw that Ruby had taken off her mask. "You don't see my face." Ruby said. "If I find out that someone revealed my identity by remembering my face, you'll be my first suspect. Got it?" she asked.

Patricia nodded nervously with a scared look in her eyes and went back to working on her computer.

Ruby leaned her M110 against the chair with its safety on. She pulled her FN-57 out of its holster and released the magazine. She placed the magazine on the table and ejected the round that was loaded in the chamber from the gun. She caught the bullet in mid-air and fed the bullet back into the magazine.

She began to check the pistol for any dust, grime and just plain anything that could mess up the gun. She then heard the sounds of someone sitting down on the couch in front of her. She looked up to the see the one mercenary from the vehicle bay back at HQ, the one with the blue beret and shades. He set down his weapon next to him. It was a G36C carbine, the only add-on it had was a flashlight on the side. The pistol at his side was an M9 Beretta.

Ruby read the tag on his chest. "Kronos."

"You alright, Ma'am?" he asked. He pulled down his scarf and modifier so that they were around his neck.

"Fine." Ruby said. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, you seem a little... On edge." Kronos said.

"I'm alright, Kronos." she said as she went back to checking her pistol.

A few minutes passed until he spoke again. "You know her, don't you." he said.

Ruby's head shot up and locked eyes with Kronos. "W-what do you mean?" she asked. She silently cursed herself for stuttering.

"Miss Schnee. You knew her a while ago, I'm guessing." he stated.

Ruby sighed. "Is it that obvious?" she asked.

Kronos shrugged. "Well, you always seem tense around her, you're a little too nice to her, and you actually brought her to the cemetery earlier. Usually you would have just said 'No' if someone requested something like that. So I came to the conclusion that she's an old friend of yours." he said.

"Little more than a friend." Ruby mumbled.

"What was that?" Kronos asked.

"I said she was a little more than a friend." Ruby said.

"Best friend?" Kronos asked.

"Little more."

Kronos thought for a moment. "You considered each other sisters?" he asked.

Ruby shook her head. "More." she said.

Kronos looked to be stumped. He didn't have any more guesses.

"Give up?" Ruby asked.

Kronos shrugged again.

Ruby sighed. "We used to date." she said.

Kronos' eyes widened slightly. "Wow, no wonder you're on edge. You're trying to make sure she doesn't realize it's you." he said.

Ruby nodded. "Yeah. Black, Yellow, she, and I used to be a really tight group in college. Weiss and I, around the second year, began dating and we were a happy couple all the way through graduation. Then the day after graduation when she went home, we never heard from her again. We heard rumors about her taking on the Schnee Gas company name and she was working without any distractions. In my mind, I began thinking if that all I was to her. A distraction. Years later Black,Yellow and I got invited to H&H and now here we are." Ruby said as she gestured with her hand toward the room around them.

Kronos removed his beret and shades to reveal short brown hair and blue eyes. Now that Ruby got a better look at his face, he looked to be in his late thirties or early forties. "It sounds like you want to let her know that you're alive. But at the same time you don't want to suffer any other consequences that will come with you letting her know that you are." he said.

"Exactly." Ruby said.

Kronos shook his head slightly. "Damn, Red. You're in some pickle. But if I were you, I don't think I would do it. I think that if you reveal to her that you're alive, it will because nothing but more problems than the one you would have just solved." he said.

"I know." Ruby said. "But what if I actually never see her again after this? What if it's the last time ever I see her?" she asked.

Kronos thought for another moment. "I don't know, Red. If that's what happens I think you might just have to live with It." he said.

Ruby nodded as she loaded the magazine that was sitting on the table back into pistol. She loaded a round into the chamber and put the pistol on safety, then slipped it back into the holster that was on her thigh.

* * *

An hour past and there had been no word from inside the other room. All the mercenaries had been given bottles of water from the receptionist. Ruby barely touched hers but was thankful for it. It was a very hot day in Vale, luckily the A.C. was on in the building.

Ruby then turned her attention to the radio that was still next to her. It was still playing the same news station that it had been the entire time.

But this current broadcast caught her attention. The news anchor was talking about some interesting issues concerning the White Fang.

"Now, we have been getting information from our sources and we have gained some worrying information." the anchor said. "We have gotten word that the White Fang has been gaining support in great numbers recently. There is an estimate that they have gained over four thousand supporters in the last two months. The Faunus radical group has been trying to change the viewpoint of the Faunus around the globe, but they seem to be doing it in the wrong ways." he said.

Then, something that Ruby didn't expect happened. A loud _KA-BOOM!_ Echoedthrough the streets of Vale. Outside, Ruby heard multiple windows shatter and cars alarms began to go off.

Ruby quickly latched her voice modifier around her mouth and then pulled up her scarf. She picked up her shades and put them on, then flipped up the hood to her cloak. She grabbed he rifle and held it on her hands, switching the safety off. She stood out of her seat and turned on her earpiece.

"Yellow! The hell was that?!" she asked.

"No idea. Going to check now. Grab Weiss and bring her down here!" Yang said.

"Got it, already on it." Ruby said. "Black, get the cars in front of the building, we're leaving."

"On the way. Leaving the garage in a few seconds." Blake said.

"Got it." Ruby said.

Ruby turned her attention towards the large doubles doors that led into the room where Weiss had gone in. She, Kronos and one other mercenary began walking towards the door. "Buzz us in!" she shouted to Patricia who was standing at her desk with a scared look on her face.

Her hands reached for the buzzer like lightning and buzzed the door so that it would unlock.

Ruby had to kick the door open because she was holding her rifle. With her foot sideways, she kicked and both doors flew open. Before her was a long table that stretched from one side of the room to the other with chairs lined all along the outside of it. Ruby raised the rifle so that she looked down the ACOG scope and began scanning to room. To her left she saw five people.

One of them, had a pistol in his hand.

"Gun!" Kronos shouted. "Put it down!"

"Put the gun down!" Ruby shouted at him.

"It's ok! It's ok!" the man yelled.

"Shut up and put it down!" Kronos shouted at him.

"Ok! Ok!" the man said. He released the magazine, popped out the round that was in the chamber and placed the pistol on the ground. Ruby walked up to man with her weapon still pointed at him, the other four people, one of them being Weiss, backed away from the situation before them. Ruby kicked the gun across the room and spun the man around so that his back was to her.

Kronos walked over and kicked the back of the man's knee so that he would be kneeling. Kronos then pressed the barrel of his carbine against the back of the man's head.

Ruby walked around to the front of the man and looked at him. He had short blue hair and gray eyes and was wearing a gray suit. Ruby could see a now empty pistol holster on the inside of the suit jacket.

"What are you doing?" asked one of the other men to her right.

Ruby ignored the man for now. "Who are you?" she asked the gunman.

"My name is Rich. Rich Garfield. I'm a private bodyguard for Mr. Edward Tanner." he said.

Ruby looked over at the group of people to her right. "Is it true?" she asked.

One man with gray hair and blue eyes stepped forward. He was wearing a black business suit and black dress shoes.

"I'm Edward Tanner. And that man you just assaulted is indeed my bodyguard." Mr. Tanner said.

"I told you that you should have let them know that you had a guard in here, Mr. Tanner." Weiss said.

Ruby waved off Kronos, signaling him to take the rifle barrel off his head. Kronos complied and helped the man up, along with a quick "Sorry".

"She's right, Mr. Tanner." Ruby said. "If we didn't decide to do what we did, he could be off worse than a bruised back-knee. How would we have known if he was an assassin or someone." she stated.

"I didn't know that you people would take this so seriously." Mr. Tanner said.

Ruby looked at the man with a confused look on her face, although it was obscured by her scarf and shades. "What do you mean by-" she was beginning to ask him a question but was interrupted by a voice coming through her earpiece.

"Red, it's Yellow, the explosion has been identified as a Schnee Gas Station. Police and firefighters are already on the scene. They say someone placed a bomb and ran. Possibly White Fang." Yang said.

"Shit. Understood, Yellow. Be down in a moment." Ruby said. "Black, you ready for us downstairs?" she asked.

"We're ready and waiting, Red." Blake said.

"What's going on?" Weiss asked.

Ruby turned to Weiss. "A Schnee Gas Station. Someone, possibly White Fang, placed a bomb and ran. I don't think we should be in this building anymore. I don't want to get bombed." Ruby said. She then turned to Rich. "You're a guard. Why don't you call all your buddies and have them evacuate everyone in the building." she said.

Rich looked to Mr. Tanner with a look that said _should I do it?_

Mr. Tanner thought for a moment. "Do it." he said. "Make sure everyone in the building gets out safely."

Rich nodded and left the room at top speeds, making his way for the stairs that were next to the elevator.

Another voice began to speak through Ruby's earpiece. "Beowulf, this is Nevermore, we are flying above your area, and we see some suspicious vehicles moving fast towards Tanner Oil." Nevermore said.

"Copy that, Nevermore." she said. She turned to Weiss and spoke again. "Leaving. Now." she said.

Weiss nodded and looked at Mr. Tanner. "Sorry that we have to cut this meeting short, Mr. Tanner." she said.

"It's alright dear, I understand the urgent ness of this situation. Go on." Mr. Tanner said.

Weiss nodded to Mr. Tanner, then to Ruby. She began walking towards the doors with Ruby leading and Kronos and the other mercenary behind her. The fourth was still waiting by the elevator waiting for orders.

"Call it." Ruby said.

"Alright." the mercenary said. He pressed the button of the elevator button for down, but above them a red X signaled them of something wrong. Ruby turned toward Patricia who was still standing behind her desk. "What's going on with this thing?" Ruby asked.

"Emergency protocol." Patricia said. "In the case of a major emergency, the elevator is to be shut down. I'm sorry but you'll have to take the stairs."

Ruby sighed. "Great." she said. She had been saying that a lot today. The group walked to the stairs and began the 21 floor decent.

After nearly five minutes they walked onto the 1st floor and out into the lobby. Blake and Yang were out there and waiting for them with their weapons in hand.

"Ok." Yang said. "Let's get out of here!"

They all quickly walked out to the vehicles and got in. Once they heard that all mercenaries were in the vehicles they drove off.

Luckily the cars on the road were moving at a fast pace. They were all probably moving away from the large explosion that was once a gas station.

The car rolled through an intersection. Ruby was looking out the window and saw a large tractor-trailer truck waiting for the light to change. What Ruby didn't see though, was that the driver of the truck was eyeing all three of their vehicles as they passed.

"Where are we going anyway?" Weiss asked.

"Outskirts of the city." Blake said. "Nevermore is going to pick us up around the same area that they dropped us off last night."

"Ok, but don't you think if the White Fang were following us they wo-" she was interrupted by a loud _HHOOOOONK!_ Of a horn blared through the streets and another tractor-trailer truck pulled up and stopped in front of them. The first vehicle smashed into the truck at full force, Blake managed to stop in time along with the vehicle behind them.

Ruby spun her head around and saw that the other tractor-trailer truck behind them had blocked off that way as well. She looked closer and saw White Fang soldiers getting out of the truck behind them with weapons ready.

"White Fang, moving up behind us!" Ruby said. She looked at the truck in front of them and saw the door to the back of the truck open up and some more White Fang get out. "Shit! Get down!" she screamed as she forced Weiss to bend herself forward so that she was protected by the door.

Bullets began to hit the door and window as they were aiming for Weiss. Thank God for bullet proof glass.

"Car three, get your Miniguns up and cut down the people moving behind us." she said through her earpiece.

"Got it, give us a sec." said someone from car three.

Ruby heard more gun fire and saw some of the White Fang that were shooting at them fall to the ground. She then saw the people from the first vehicle pile out of the vehicle and take cover around cars around them.

She then heard large amount of gun fire at very high rates. She turned her head and saw car three's Miniguns completely tearing through the White Fang.

Luckily civilians were running into buildings getting away from the gunfire.

"Beowulf, this is Ursa. Sounds like you got a situation. What's your status? Over."

"Beowulf here. White Fang have boxed us off. We won't be able to move the vehicles from here. We're holding our own but we need an extraction. Advise, over." Ruby said.

"Roger that Beowulf. Working on it, Standby. Over." Ursa said.

'Standby? That's _so_ helpful.' Ruby thought.

Ruby heard police sirens getting closer and closer to their position. "Ursa, notify the Vale Police Force of our situation. We don't want to fight a three way battle over here." Ruby said.

"Already did. We told them not to fire on H&H personnel because we're guards of the Schnee Gas Company and that we're escorting Miss Schnee. They seemed to get the message." Ursa said.

"Thanks, Ursa." Ruby said.

"No problem, Beowulf. Ok, got some good news for you. Nevermore has identified a good building to use for extraction. One street over to the east is a twelve story building with scaffolding completely covering the street side of the building. Get to the building, go up the scaffolding and extract with Nevermore. Simple. Good luck, Beowulf." Ursa said.

"Wait, what about the vehicles?" Ruby asked.

"Leave them for now. We're asking the VPF to watch over them for us." Ursa said.

"Roger." Ruby said.

Yang opened her window and pulled out her .50 Desert Eagle. She pointed it out the window and fired off a few shots. The large round ripped through the thin metal of the truck. Ruby heard a few pained screams from inside the truck.

"White Fang to the rear have been suppressed." said someone through her earpiece. She looked back and saw the Miniguns of the third vehicle now turning towards the truck in front of us. The barrels began to spin at a fast pace as a storm of bullets flew from the gun. A massive amount of holes began appearing in the truck and more cries of pain were heard from inside.

After about thirty seconds of continuous firing, the Miniguns barrels spun to a stop. And it was slightly silent. The only sound was the screams of terrified civilians and the sound of police sirens becoming closer.

"Everyone out, go!" Ruby said. She opened her door and stepped out with her M110 raised. Blake stepped out as well with her UMP-45 raised, she was looking at the cab of the truck. She walked towards it and opened the door with one hand while her other hand held her gun. When she opened the door, the dead body of the driver slid out of the seat and onto the ground. Ruby counted almost over 20 holes in the side of the White Fang soldier instantly, and there was more than that.

"Gotta love that three thousand Rpm!" shouted a mercenary from car three.

"Kind of overkill if you ask Me." said Blake.

"No such think, Black." Yang said. She was sticking close to Weiss with her shotgun ready.

There was the loud screeching of tires on the other side of the truck, but the police sirens were still a bit off.

"More contacts!" shouted a mercenary as he looked under the truck briefly.

Yang brought Weiss around to the back of the third SUV for protection.

Ruby began looking around for a way to get out of where they were. They couldn't go around the buildings and hug the wall because they would be too exposed. They could go through the buildings, but they would have to blow holes through the walls to get through.

Or maybe not. Ruby noticed there was good 7 foot gap in between the buildings that were between the streets, meaning that there was an alleyway. There was a tall brick wall covering up that alleyway though. But that means there would be back exits to the buildings to their right. Ruby looked at the buildings to their right and saw a small store that could have a back entrance. Luckily it was right next to the truck as well.

"Everyone! Clear them out and go through that store!" she shouted.

Some said "Copy that" others said "Got it" and a few others said "Roger".

Ruby heard the barrels of the Miniguns begin to spin up again. But then, there was a loud _Prang_! And the barrels stopped spinning. "Shit!" said the Miniguns operator as he ducked back inside the vehicle. He got out of the vehicle with his M4 carbine ready and pressed himself against the vehicle. "They hit the motor." he said. "Gun's dead."

"What's the status on car ones Miniguns?" Yang asked.

"Got damaged in the crash. Don't know how, but it did. The hatch wouldn't open and the lift for2 the gun was jammed." said a mercenary that was in car one.

"Damn." said Ruby.

Ruby looked towards the store and saw three of the mercenaries shuffling towards it as they pinned down the White Fang on the other side of the truck. They got in the store and knocked out some windows to provide cover fire. "Go, Go!" one of the shouted from inside.

Yang ran with Weiss alongside her. They both ran to the store and Yang brought Weiss into back room of the store.

"HVP is in the store. Everyone inside, now!" Ruby shouted. "I'll provide some cover fire." everyone began moving towards the store, moving from cover to cover by using the vehicles that had been abandoned by civilians.

Ruby pointed her rifle and fired at the legs of the White Fang soldiers from under the truck.

After about a minute of doing this, she looked to the right and saw that most of the other mercenaries were in the store, some of them giving her cover fire.

She began to move from cover to cover using the cars.

She heard a few high pitched _tink_!'s close to her. But they weren't bullets. She looked to her left and saw a flash grenade with the pin pulled.

'Ah, crap!' Ruby mentally screamed.

The flash grenade exploded with a blinding light and a high pitched ring. Ruby fell to the ground, pressing her hands against her eyes as the bright light wouldn't go away. She felt she had been like that for hours, but in reality it was only a minute.

Ruby began to gain back her sight and hearing. She looked around her and saw Kronos standing by the truck, yelling at Ruby and waving her forward. As her hearing came back he was screaming "Come on Red! Let's go!"

Ruby picked up her rifle and began to walk but stumbled slightly because her sight was not back fully yet and her foot hit the side of a car. Ruby looked up and saw Kronos begin to make his way to her.

Then a bullet from the other side of the truck ripped through both sides of the truck and flew into Kronos' neck. Ruby's eyes came back just as Kronos dropped his G36C, and his hands flew up to his neck, trying to stop the blood. He fell to his knees and then laid down on his side, almost instantly a puddle of blood began to form around him.

Ruby threw her rifle over her shoulder and ran for Kronos. She got to him and began pulling him with all her might. He tried to say something but it came out as a sputter and a small spray of blood.

Ruby looked down at him and saw that his shades had fallen off, and his eyes only showed one emotion. Fear. "It's ok, Kronos. You're going to be alright." Ruby said.

The other mercenaries in the store were coming out and giving them cover fire. One of the others came to her side and helped pulled Kronos inside. That helped a lot and in a matter of seconds they were inside the store. Her and the other mercenary brought Kronos into the back room where Weiss and Yang were.

"Oh no." Yang said as they brought Kronos in. Luckily the mercenary that helped bring in Kronos was a medic. The medic took off the large medical bag that was on his back and began digging through it. He took out a white towel and handed it to Ruby.

"Help and stem the bleeding." he said.

"Ok." Ruby said. She got Kronos to remove his hands from his neck and she pressed the towel against his neck. The towel was instantly damp and was turning red. "Shit. This bleeding is really heavy." She said.

Kronos tried to talk again but it came out again as sputters and sprits of blood.

"Don't try to talk." said the medic. "You'll just make it worse. Let me see it." he said to Ruby.

Ruby took off the towel and the medic looked at the wound. "Ok, it went straight through." he said. He then leaned towards Ruby and whispered into her ear. "He's got about a minute or two. There's nothing I can do. I'll need a whole team of surgeons to help him and he's lost too much blood already. I'm sorry." he said, and he truly did sound sorry.

Ruby didn't like it, but she knew he was right. Trying to fix a bullet wound to the neck out in the field was like trying to stop a dam from leaking water with paper towels. "You're going to be ok, Kronos." she said. "You're going to be ok."

Kronos gave a sad smile as his eyes rolled into the back of his head, breathe ceasing. The medic pressed two fingers against Kronos' wrist and sighed. "He's gone." he said.

Ruby nodded. She reached down Kronos' shirt, grabbed his tags and pulled them off. On the chain were two dog tags, and two wedding bands. She got sadder seeing this, but made her smile almost. 'Hope you're with her now.' she said to herself. She read the dogs tags. Drake 'Kronos' Stevens.

"Ursa, this is Beowulf. We have a KIA, Drake 'Kronos' Stevens. I say again, KIA on Drake 'Kronos' Stevens." she said through her earpiece.

"Copy that Beowulf. Make sure that you bring him back." Ursa said. Ruby wasn't sure who was talking at the moment, but she didn't care.

The medic took a folding stretcher out of the large medical bag and unfolded it. They picked up Kronos' body and laid it on the stretcher. One of the other mercenaries walked into the back room, he placed Kronos' G36C on top of Kronos.

"Cops are down the street, I think we should get moving." the mercenary said.

Ruby nodded. "Ok, you two carry the stretcher. We'll cover you." she said to the medic and the other mercenary. Ruby looked to Weiss. "You ok, Miss Schnee?" she asked.

Weiss looked shaken up but unharmed. "Yeah." was all she said.

Ruby opened up a large green door that had an exit sign above it. It lead out into the alleyway between the buildings. She pointed her rifle down the alleyway and saw no one there. About 3/4 of the way down the alley, they was another alley leading to the street they needed to be on.

The gunfire from the front of the store had ceased and the sirens sounded to be almost in front of the store.

'I guess the cops scared them away.' Ruby said to herself.

She and the group of now thirteen jogged out into the alleyway and then onto the second street. She could see the building with the scaffolding across the street.

They all got across the street and began ascending the scaffolding. They went in one long row, with Ruby leading, and up the ramps as they zig-zagged up the side of the building.

They eventually made it to the roof and felt the cool breeze of the warm day.

"Nevermore, this is Beowulf. We are ready for extraction." Ruby said through the earpiece.

Within a few seconds of her saying that, the loud engines of the bullheads were heard and they descended. Two of the bullheads landed on the roof and their side doors opened. The third stayed in the sky, watching over them.

The first thing to go on in one of the bullheads was Kronos' body. They lifted him up and brought him to the back of the bullhead. Ruby, Blake, Yang, and Weiss got in the other one along with two other of the mercenaries. All the other mercenaries got into the other bullhead. Once they got the word that everyone was accounted for, they took off into the sky and away from Vale.

It was now time for the nine hour flight back to White Castle.

* * *

Ruby spent those nine hours staring off into space.

The entire time, she was blaming herself for Kronos' death. If only she had tossed that flash grenade away from her, she wouldn't have been disoriented to the point Kronos had to come over to her and help her. If she had done that, maybe Kronos would still be alive. The entire time she thought about it, his dog tags felt heavy in her pants pocket.

Eventually, the pilot said they were a few minutes away from White Castle. Ruby stood from where she was sitting and walked over to the side door and got ready to open it.

As they approached, Ruby heard the pilot say to himself "What the hell?" Ruby stepped over to the doorway that led to the cockpit.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Look over to the horizon, straight ahead. You see that faint glow? That isn't the sun is it?" he asked.

Ruby looked ahead of them. There was indeed a glow in the distance. And as they got closer they noticed it was a large building. It was White Castle. And it was burning to the ground.

The large mansion had flames billowing out of every window and smoke rose to the sky in great amounts. There looked to be no emergency vehicles anywhere near the structure as it burned. But there was a vast amount of other vehicle. Ruby looked at the ones near the street lamps and saw the familiar crest of the White Fang, painted onto the sides.

"Son of a bitch..." Ruby muttered.

She heard footsteps behind her. "What is it?" the person asked. Ruby turned and saw Weiss standing there with a questioning look on her face. Ruby moved out ofthe way to let Weiss see. Weiss looked concerned, but confused.

"Whose building is that?" It kind of looks like my-" She stopped herself, the realization clicking in her mind. Ruby moved to stand next to Weiss and put an arm around her.

Weiss looked around at the vehicles below them. When she turned her head to the left while still looking below, she spoke again. "What are they doing?" she asked.

Ruby looked to where she was looking. She saw two White Fang soldiers, one of them running with a long tube.

'Is that what I think it is?' Ruby thought to herself.

She watched as one of the White Fang got on one knee. A small white puff of smoke erupted from behind him.

"RPG incoming!"

* * *

**AN: Chapter 4, complete! Hope you guys enjoyed. I never thought I would really do a cliffhanger ending for a chapter because I hate them with such a passion. Anyway, this chapter took a little longer than expected. I know, it's starting to become once every two weeks, but that will change soon. Getting closer, and closer to the end of the school year. YAY! So, thank you all for getting this story to 2,000 views, 50 follows, and 30 favorites. Thanks to Shattered Spectre for beta-reading this chapter. Thanks for reading, and I'll see you all, in the next chapter.**


	6. Chapter 5: Part 1

"Hang On!" the pilot shouted.

Weiss felt Red tighten her grip around her as the pilot jerked the stick of the Bullhead. The entire airship tilted. The two fell to the cold metal floor. Red groaned when they hit the floor as Weiss landed on top of her.

Weiss stole a glance at the window again and saw the rocket that had been fired at them fly past the windshield. The pilot quickly jerked the stick back and the airship leveled out.

"Are you okay, Miss Schnee?" Red asked.

"Yes, I'm alright, thank you." Weiss said. She stood off of Red and dusted herself off.

Red then quickly stood, she stumbled slightly but regained her footing, and looked to the other mercenaries that were in the bullhead. "You guys alright?" she asked. Most of them were on the floor and were beginning to recover.

She got a mixed response of "Yeah"'s, groans, and a "Let's do that again".

Red turned to the doorway of the cockpit. She starred out the window for a few seconds. "This place is crawling with White Fang. More and more are starting to come out of the woodwork. From where, I have no idea." she said.

"Orders?" asked the pilot.

Red thought for a moment. "Return to base." she said.

"Ma'am, what about Miss-"

"Return To Base!" Red repeated.

"Ah, Damnit." the pilot grumbled. He pulled down the microphone that was attached to his aviator helmet. "This is Nevermore One, we're returning to base. RTB." the pilot said through the radio. From the radio, Weiss heard the other two pilots voices confirm what the pilot said.

The pilot pulled the stick again and they began to go off in another direction. Bullets ricochet off the heavy plating of the bullhead as it flew away.

Weiss walked over to one of the small side windows and starred out of it. She watched as her burning home faded into the distance. When it was out of sight, she slumped down the side of the wall.

She never liked being in that house, she was practically imprisoned by her father in it for ten years, but she still felt devastated watching it burn.

She began to wonder what happened to her father. Was he dead? Was he still in the house? Did he manage to escape somehow? She hated the man but he was still her father.

Red crouched next to and placed a hand on Weiss' shoulder. Weiss didn't know why, but with Red, she felt connected to her in some way. Like she knew her once in her life, but had been long forgotten. To Weiss, she felt she could trust Red.

"You going to be okay?" Red asked. Weiss glanced at Red and all she saw was a scarf, shades and a cloak hood. All her facial features hidden. Weiss believed that Red was indeed worried about her.

Weiss briefly nodded. "Yeah. I think so." she said.

"Do you think your dad got out?"

Weiss shrugged.

"Mom?"

"She died five years ago. Got very sick." it was still a hard subject at points for Weiss but this wasn't one of those points.

Red looked down. "I'm sorry." she said.

"Not your fault." Weiss said.

Weiss then heard a slight voice coming from Red's earpiece as she sat next to her. "Beowulf, this is Ursa. Has the package been delivered home? Over." the voice said.

"Negative, Ursa. Over." Red said.

"Negative? What do you mean negative?"

"Schnee Manor is currently burning to the ground, Ursa. The White Fang was all over the area. We still have Miss Schnee with us. We almost took an RPG, but we're good. Over."

"You gotta' be kiddin' me."

"I speak the truth."

There was a long pause. A few voices in the background were debating the situation but could not be understood.

"Return to base." Ursa said. "Get back here safe. We'll debate what to do with Miss Schnee shortly after you arrive. Over and out." the line then clicked off.

"Understood." Red muttered.

"What do they mean by 'debate what to do' with me?" Weiss asked.

"It will either be to let you stay on base with us for a while or we send you off to some relative and give you weekly check up's. Then after a month or so, all contact with us will be stopped and you'll never here from us again." Red said, sounding a little sad toward the end. "My money is on option two, though."

What Weiss didn't know was that this wasn't the standard protocol for H&H. The standard protocol was that the mercenaries that are hired must cut all connections that they have to their client. When Ruby would be checking up, she would be going against the rules of the company.

Weiss nodded. "Alright. Where exactly are we going?" she asked.

Red shrugged. "Not allowed to say. With you here, when were still about thirty minutes out, we'll have to pull down the shades on the side windows and you won't be allowed to look out the cockpit window, just so that you won't be able to get an idea of where we're heading." she said.

Weiss didn't like the idea about not knowing where they would be going, but by Red's explanation of it, it sounded that she didn't have a say in it.

"Ok. How long until we get there?" Weiss asked.

"Somewhere around late morning, early afternoon. You should get some sleep. You haven't had the ideal day and I'm sure you're about to pass out." Red said.

She was right, Weiss' eyes felt heavy. She had planned to go to bed as soon as she got back to White Castle but now... An image of the burning house flashed through her mind again.

Red pulled put a small backpack and handed it to Weiss. "Here, use this as a pillow. This isn't a commercial flight so we don't keep pillows on hand." she said as she placed the backpack on the ground.

Weiss gave a small smile but at the same time wanted to retort which only came out as mumble. She laid down on the ground and rested her head on the backpack, her eyes closing as soon as she made contact with the makeshift pillow.

She felt something drape over her, but she didn't open her eyes to check what it was. She heard foot click across the metal floor of the bullhead, and then the sound of a whispered argument.

Weiss still didn't open her eyes and she drifted off into sleep.

* * *

Weiss woke up around ten o'clock the next morning.

The first thing she noticed that the backpack that Red had given her as a pillow was parachute pack. Then she noticed that the thing that had been draped over her was a red cloak. She realized it was _Red's_ red cloak.

Weiss sat up from the floor, which was not comfortable to sleep on, and looked around the bullhead.

She saw Black, Yellow, and the other two mercenaries that were in the bullhead sitting not too far away from her. Most of them were dozing, the only one that was awake was Black and she was just starting to stretch.

"Morning." Weiss said.

Black gave a nod and a wave as she gave a deep yawn, which was even deeper with her voice modifier.

Weiss heard voices from the cockpit. "You're going to have to take a break eventually." said the modified voice.

"Nah, I'm good." said an unmodified voice.

Weiss turned her head towards the cockpit and saw both seats were occupied. The person in the co-pilot seat had their feet up on the console.

"You've been awake for, what, almost twenty hours?" said the modified voice. Weiss assumed that it must be Red talking to the pilot at this point.

"Yeah, so?" said the pilot.

"I don't want this thing crashing into the dirt because you didn't hand the stick over to your co-pilot."

"Where's your pilots license?"

"Hey, I have some flying experience."

"Some?"

"Ok, maybe an hour of flying a bullhead, but I got the hang of the controls pretty quick."

"If all you have is an hour of flight experience, then no. I'll just put the thing on autopilot, take a nap and get us the rest of the way there."

"Whatever you say, your choice in this situation. Although if you get really tired, I'll have to pull my rank on you."

The pilot chuckled. "Well that ain't fair."

"That's the way it works. Now just fly and try not to fall asleep with the stick in your hand."

"That sounded wrong. But, alright."

"Shut up and fly."

The pilot chuckled again.

Weiss guessed that their conversation was now over. She stood up and stretched out her arms and legs. Her shoulder felt weird from the way she slept, but she ignored the slight pain. Weiss picked up Red's cloak.

She walked over to the door way to the cockpit and saw the pilot and Red sitting there. She briefly looked out the windshield of the bullhead and saw that it was another clear day. She looked at Red and saw her hair. It was long and black, with red streaks in it.

'_Red streaks... Just like Ruby's hair. Although Ruby's hair was shorter than Red's_.' Weiss thought to herself. The thought made her a little sad that Red slightly resembled Ruby.

Red turned her head to look at Weiss. The mercenary was still wearing her shades and scarf.

"Morning, Miss Schnee. Sleep well?" Red asked.

Weiss gave a nod. She was still looking at Red's hair. It looked too much like Ruby's. Weiss shook her head. '_It can't be Ruby. You saw the grave yourself, yesterday._' Weiss told herself.

"You okay?" Red asked. Weiss saw a single eyebrow raised over the edge of the shades.

"Yeah." Weiss said. "Yeah, I'm alright."

"Okay." Red said. Her eyes wandered slightly and saw that Weiss was holding her cloak. Weiss noticed and handed it to her.

"You know you didn't have to lend me your cloak to use as a blanket. I would have been perfectly fine." Weiss said.

Red took the cloak from Weiss and set it down in her lap. "Yeah, well, I wanted to be nice." she said.

Weiss sighed. "I appreciate the gesture, but you still didn't have to."

Red just shrugged.

"How long until we get there?" Weiss asked.

"'Bout an hour and a half to two hours." the pilot said. He quickly glanced to the gauges on the console. "But we'll be running on fumes before we know it, and I bet the other two bullhead are in the same boat as us. The fuel we have should be enough to get us to base... Barely." he said.

"What do you mean barely?" Weiss asked.

"He means we'll either make it to base, or we'll have to set down the bullheads a few miles away from the base and a convoy with a few fuel trucks will have to come and give us a refuel." Red said. "And that would suck."

"Just to give you some odds, I think we have a 25% chance of making it to base." the pilot said.

"That makes me feel so much better." Red said sarcastically.

"I have to agree." Weiss said.

The pilot shrugged and chuckled.

Red turned to Weiss. "Go sit down, we'll be there before you know it. Try not to get really bored." she said.

"That'll be hard." Weiss said. She walked back into the main area of the bullhead and saw the other mercenaries were starting wake up. Weiss sat down on one of the empty benches that was attached to the wall. As soon as she sat down, she noticed that the shades on the window were beginning to go down, which meant that they were coming close to the base.

She sat and waited.

* * *

She waited the full hour and half that had been predicted. Weiss heard the pilot speak through his headset. "Ursa, this is Nevermore. We are currently two minutes out. Over."

"Copy that. Defenses are now offline. Welcome home, Nevermore. Same to you, Beowulf."

"Good to be home, Ursa." Red and the pilot said in unison.

Red emerged from the cockpit, her cloak around her shoulders and her hood hiding her hair, again. She stood by the side door of the bullhead, getting ready to open the door.

The other mercenaries stood up and slung their weapons over their shoulders.

"Thirty seconds." said the pilot.

Weiss stood up at this point as well. She wondered what the base of the mercenaries would look like. Would it be a wooden shack in the woods? '_That's too cliché. Plus, this ship is far too advanced for them to have a small shack._' Weiss said to herself.

She was about to think of more possible ways their base could look when Red opened the side door. Weiss was blinded by the light after being inside the bullhead for so long with the windows covered.

Outside the door, Weiss saw a large metal structure. Dust was flying up from the ground.

Weiss saw more of the bullheads lined up and down the outside part of the airfield. There were some mercenaries who were working in the bullheads. Sparks flew off of one of them as a piece of metal was being welded onto it.

There was a group of men and women in gray t-shirts and tank-top's with black cargo pants. As they ran, a drill sergeant screamed at them, from the back of a Humvee, to keep running and pick up the pace. At some points he would start cussing them out and threatening them to get them to go faster.

There was another group of mercenaries who were playing basketball with a backboard and hoop that was bolted to the outside of one of the two hangars.

Weiss then saw something that actually made her nervous. Outside the second hangar, being cleaned, was a large tank. It was an M1A1 Abrams tank that the Vytal and Atlas militaries used in their armored divisions. '_How in the world do they have a tank? Not to mention the other large amount of potentially dangerous weaponry that they have. Who are these people? Is any of this legal?_' questions began going through her head.

As she was thinking this, five topless Humvee's drove up and stopped in front of the three bullheads that landed.

Red stepped out of the bullhead and held her hand out for Weiss to take. Weiss took her hand and stepped down from the bullhead.

The center Humvee that drove up was parked in front of their bullhead. Getting out of the Humvee were four people. Weiss quickly glanced to the right and saw the body of the one know as Drake 'Kronos' Stevens, being loaded off one of the other bullheads. He was brought over to the front Humvee and placed in the back.

Weiss turned her head back to the four people who were walking toward her. One of men that was walking had medium lengthen black hair with a cyan blue streak over his right eye. He was wearing deeply tinted shades but no scarf or voice modifier. He had a black t-shirt and blue jeans. He had two revolvers strapped to his thighs. There was something about him that seemed familiar to Weiss in a way. She felt she had seen his face before.

The second man had short black military haircut. He had a pair of blood red tinted aviators, and also no scarf or voice modifier. He had on a crimson colored t-shirt and black cargo pants. Under his left arm was a pistol holster that currently had a pistol in it.

A third man was one with short black hair as well, but with a bright pink streak over his left eye. He had green tinted shades and a green scarf, with possibly a voice modifier under the scarf. He had a black Kevlar vest with his codename on the left chest that read 'Milan', and under the vest was a green shirt with a gold lieutenant bar on the left sleeve and the H&H patch on the right sleeve. On the vest he had a few ammo straps and a satellite phone. He had black cargo pants and black combat boots. Attached to each of the boots, was a single combat knife. Strapped to his thighs were two pistols called Glock 18's, and in his hands was an assault rifle known as the HK416.

The final person was a woman with short orange hair. She was wearing pink tinted shades and a sky blue colored scarf. Her black Kevlar vest had a codename over the left chest that read 'Thor'. She had a combat knife across the chest and a satellite phone on the chest. Her undershirt was pink and had a gold lieutenant bar and the H&H patch. She was wearing black cargo pants and combat boots as well, which Weiss was beginning to think was standard attire. Strapped to her right thigh was a small machine gun called an MP7, and in her hands she had an M32 grenade launcher.

Weiss noticed that Thor had a man's name for codename and Mulan had a woman's for a codename. She forced herself not to smile at that, as to show no disrespect.

Red, Black and Yellow stood by her side and the other two mercenaries who were in the bullhead with them, got in one of the Humvee's.

The three stood with their hands behind their back and their backs straight.

"Commanders." Red whispered next to Weiss.

The group of four people stopped in front of the other group of four with the commanders in between Thor and Mulan.

"Weiss Schnee?" questioned the man with the cyan streak.

"Yes?" Weiss said.

The two commanders exchanged a brief glance with each other. Then they both stuck out their hands for a handshake, which Weiss accepted. "Welcome to the HQ of Huntsman and Huntresses Mercenary Services. We don't know how long you'll be staying here, so we'll just give you our code names for now." said the man with short black hair. "Mine is Dred."

"And mine is Angel." said the other.

Weiss raised an eyebrow. "Angel?"

He put his arms down to his side. "You got a problem with my code name?" he asked in a serious tone.

Weiss glanced at his hands which were now fairly close to the revolvers that were at his waist. She also then remembered that she had a bounty on her head, and he was actually a bounty hunter.

Weiss shook her head. "No. No. It suits." she said the first thing that came to mind.

Angel crossed his arms and gave a "humph" in response.

"Alright." Dred said. "Now that we have introductions out of the way, let's get inside. We have much to discuss."

Everyone began loading into the topless Humvee's. Weiss sat next to Red in the Humvee behind the center. Once everyone was in a Humvee, they drove towards the vehicle depot.

They drove with the wind blowing slightly through Weiss' hair. Weiss saw to her right an outdoor firing range and saw multiple people firing weapons, working on their aiming and grouping.

Once inside the depot, there was a larger amount of vehicles inside then there was outside. Weiss saw more of the SUV's that they had in the city, and some other large trucks and jeeps. There were armored vehicles that would have taken a lot of firepower to slow down. There was even some older helicopters that were considered outdated when the bullheads came around, but these ones looked like they had been kept in good condition over the years. Most of them had some pretty large guns on them, as well.

'_Forget mercenary group_,' Weiss thought. '_These guys are their own army_.'

"Pretty crazy, isn't it?" Red said beside her.

Weiss must have been gaping at the war machines for so long that Red must have noticed.

She nodded. "How is all of this possible?" she asked.

"Not allowed to say." was all she said.

The vehicles stopped in front of a pair of doors that lead to the rest of the facility. Everyone piled out of the vehicles. Dred and Angel spoke to their comrades. "Okay, we're going to be doing de-briefs now." Dred said.

"We'll be starting with the one that would possibly take the quickest, but don't know yet." Angel said. "Red, Black, Yellow and Miss Schnee, you'll be following us for now. Everyone else, you will be called for your later de-briefs." he said.

"But there's still one thing we have to do." Dred said. "Who has Kronos' tags?" he asked.

Red raised her hand.

The two commanders nodded. "You know what to do." Angel said.

Red took the dog tags that belonged to her comrade out of one of the pockets in her cargo pants. The tags and wedding bands clicked together as they moved. Red walked over to the body of Kronos, the head of all the mercenaries around her lowered as Red began to speak.

"For it is in passing that we achieve immortality. Through this we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all, infinite in distance and unbound by death, I release your soul." Red said in prayer. It wasn't any prayer that Weiss had ever heard of before. And after it was finished, she unsheathed Kronos' combat knife and sliced off the H&H patch on his shirt.

"Ok, everyone except for Red, Black and Yellow are dismissed. Someone take Kronos to the morgue and have his body prepped to be moved to his grave in Atlas." Angel said. With that, mercenaries began walking off in multiple different directions. Two of them took the stretcher with Kronos on it and brought it off to the morgue.

The group of six walked through the double doors and made their way through the facility. Weiss noticed that there were no windows anywhere as they walked along.

Eventually they stopped at a door. They had been passing doors for a while with nameplates on them. Weiss guessed they were dorms of some sort that the mercenaries lived in. The door that they stopped at read 'Stevens'.

Red, who was still holding Kronos' combat knife, pressed the H&H patch against the door, right under the nameplate. She then jabbed the knife into the patch so that it stuck in the door. Finally, Red wrapped the dog tags around the hilt of the combat knife. A symbol, to know that this warrior had fallen.

After that was done, they all moved through a maze of hallways and walked into a room with a large oval shaped table. There were chairs around it and a single laptop sat in the center.

"Miss Schnee, please have a seat." said Dred.

The two men walked to the other side of the table and sat down in two seats. Dred opened the laptop and started typing on it.

Red leaned herself against a wall, Black sat down in a chair respectively while Yellow sat in one of the chairs and propped her feet on top of the table.

Without even looking up from the laptop, Dred said "Down" in an annoyed tone, like he said that to her a lot and was getting tired of it.

Yellow took her feet off the table and sat there respectively like Black.

"Okay, Miss Schnee let's get down to business." Angel said.

"Alright." she said.

"Now, from reports we got from Nevermore and Red here. It appears that your house has been burned down. Correct?" Dred said bluntly.

"Yes." Weiss said.

"Okay. Now the standard thing we would do is send you off to a relative and you would never here from us again after a month or so. But then we took a look at the hit lists from around the world, and what we found wasn't good." Angel said.

"What did you find?" Weiss asked worryingly.

Dred spun around his laptop so that the screen was facing Weiss. "The hits on everyone in your family is beginning to rise drastically." he said. "Everyone that has any form of blood relation to the Schnee line are having larger and larger bounties being placed on them by the hour."

Weiss stared at the screen wide-eyed.

He was right.

Almost all of her close relatives were on the list. Her Grandmother, her aunt Sophia, her uncle, even her twelve year old cousin was on the list.

"And then." Dred said as he spun the laptop towards him again, he pressed a few buttons and scrolled down slightly and turned the screen again. "Your father's bounty has jumped six hundred thousand lien in the past two days, and climbing." Weiss almost gasped as the insane number.

"And then!" he said as he repeated just a few seconds before. "There's you." Weiss looked at the number that was across from her name.

800,000 L.

All the color drained from Weiss' face.

"Congratulations." Angel said. "You now have the fifth highest bounty in all of Remnant."

"I don't think that was necessary sir." Red said.

"It was to me." he said.

Red sighed.

Weiss felt like she was about to go insane. All of her family was wanted dead, and there was nothing she could do about it. Her father was missing and her "home" was gone.

"Have you heard anything about my father?" Weiss asked.

"Nada." Dred said. "But the bounty is still up which means no one had claimed it, so he's still alive."

"So. What are you going to do with me?" she asked.

Angel sighed. "We'll keep you on base. In our eyes, our job protecting you isn't over yet. But now, you have the whole base to help defend you. We have a few guest quarters and we'll let you sleep in one of them for the time being." he said.

"Until when?" Weiss asked.

"Until we get those bounties off of some of your relatives, then we'll send you to them." Dred said.

"And just how long will that take?" she asked.

Both of the commanders shrugged.

Weiss sighed. "Alright."

"Red, please escort Miss Schnee to her guest quarters." Dred ordered. "Black and Yellow, we'll start with your briefings first."

"Yes, sir." Red said.

The two walked out of the room and made their way to Weiss' temporary quarters.

* * *

_2 Days Later_

Weiss walked through the halls of H&H.

It had been two days and there was no word on her father, or the progress on the bounties. She hadn't heard anything from the two commanders.

Although, she had been talking to Red at some points. Every time they would talk together, Red would be wearing something to obscure her face. And she would always have the voice modifier as well.

Now, she was looking for Red's room, to see if she was there and to know if she had heard anything about Weiss' father.

She passed a mercenary who was patrolling the halls, who didn't seem fazed at all by Weiss being there. All guards must have been told about Weiss being there. She guessed that he might now where Red would be.

"Excuse me, do you know where I might find Red's room?" she asked the guard.

"Red? Oh, Rose! Yeah, she's right down that hall and to the left, you'll find the nameplate." he said and then went back to his patrol.

'_Rose_?' Weiss thought. '_Could her first name be Rose or is it her... Last name_?'

Weiss walked down the hall and went left, she found the nameplate of the door she was looking for. It read 'Rose'.

'_So her last name is Rose_.' Weiss said in slight disbelief.

Inside she heard the sound of an acoustic guitar playing, although it was recorded, it sounded all too familiar. She knocked on the door a few times.

"Red, are you in there?" she asked.

She heard Red from inside say something, she must have not had her voice modifier on because the deep voice sounded and out of tone. "Mi-Miss Schnee, what do you need?" The music stopped playing.

"I want to ask you something, in private." Weiss said.

"It's unlocked, give me a minute, and come in." Red said in the fake deep voice. Inside, Weiss heard another door close.

Weiss opened the door and walked in, making sure to close the door behind her.

She looked around the room. There was a bed in the center with red sheets and black pillows. There was a small flat-screen T.V. in the wall. Across from the bed there was a shelf with multiple shelves. Weiss glanced at all the things that were on the shelves.

She saw a few knick-knacks here and there, a satellite phone, a pistol and some magazines, a few weapon blueprints, the picture of Her, Ruby, Blake and Yang from the beach over a decade ago, a... Wait.

Weiss' head shot back to the picture in utter disbelief. She stared at the picture for what felt like forever.

She had been given some changes of clothes by other female mercenaries, most of it being from Red. She pulled out the picture that she had taken with her from her house out of the pair of faded jeans that she was given and compared them.

They were exactly the same.

Weiss then glanced at the nightstand that was next to the bed and saw something that made her heart leap into her throat.

On the nightstand was the snowflake necklace that Weiss had given Ruby for graduation.

Things started to come together for Weiss. "I-if this pi-picture is here and t-the necklace is here... Then that means... Then that means..."

At this point, the door to the bathroom opened and Red stepped out of the bathroom with a towel completely wrapped around her head. There was only one hole in the towel that allowed Weiss to see one _silver_ eye.

"Okay, Miss Schnee, what do you need to...? Talk... About...?" Red noticed that Weiss was holding a copy of the picture on her shelf next to her picture, and saw that Weiss' eyes were the size of dinner plates as she looked at her.

"...R-Ruby..."

"Ah, crap..."

* * *

**AN: Wow. I loved writing that chapter. Thanks to all who read, I hope you all enjoyed it!**

**I would just like to clear up so that my OC's (Dan and Tyler Scottson) don't seem like self inserts. Both characters are people used in Halo RP. I play Dan Scottson, who's callsign is Angel. And a friend of mine uses Dred Scottson, who's callsign is Dred. So it's kinda like a self-insert, but at the same time it's not.**

**Also, I am on my final week of school for this year. I've noticed at points I will lose a follow or a favorite and I think that it's because I would take too long in between chapters. If that is the case, I apologize deeply. It won't be happening for a while now because I'll be getting chapters done as fast as possible when I'm done with my finals.**

**Thanks to Shattered Spectre for Beta reading, once again. He's good guy, go check out some of his stories if you haven't, I highly recommend them if you're looking for a good read.**

**Thank you all for reading (and for 3,200 views), I'll see you all in the next chapter.**


	7. Chapter 5: Part 2

**IMPORTANT INFORMATION AT BOTTOM!**

* * *

Weiss watched as Ruby removed the towel from around her head.

Ruby's hair had grown longer over the years. It was now longer in the back, but her bangs had stayed the same length though. Her silver eyes shinned in the light of the room. At the moment, she was wearing a red tank-top a pair of black sweat pants. She had grown in... places, Weiss noticed. She seemed taller than Weiss now as well.

Weiss looked at her face and knew that it was Ruby.

"Hi, Weiss." Ruby said.

"Ruby, what's going on? I thought you were... I thought you were-"

"Dead?"

"Yeah."

Ruby gave a nervous laugh. "Surprise."

Weiss walked up to Ruby so that they were standing directly in front of each other. Weiss didn't know what to do. Hug her? Yell at her? Kiss her? Slap her? Weiss felt like she wanted to do all four at once. Though she went with the second option.

"Surprise? Surprise!? I see you after ten years, three of them went with me thinking you were DEAD and the first thing you say to me is SURPRISE!? Wait, no it wasn't the first thing you said to me. You role-played as a bodyguard for me, one in which after it was done we would never see each other again, and you continued throughout it as if you were content about never seeing me again! Forgive me if I'm sounding a bit harsh, but it is damn well justified!" Weiss would have continued if Ruby had not interrupted.

"I'M NOT THE ONE WHO SHOULD BE YELLED AT HERE!" Ruby screamed. Weiss didn't know it yet, but this was Ruby's inner warrior that was coming, the one that never backed down from a dispute, verbal nor physical.

Ruby hung her head, whispering in a way that made Weiss flinch as though the words were daggers. "Ten years ago, Weiss, you _abandoned_ me. I tried calling you, you never answered. I texted you, no answer. I e-mailed you, no answer. I even tried going to your house a few times, every time I was turned away by the guards there because they said you didn't want to see me, ever. My heart was broken into pieces for years. I took out all my frustrations out in training for police and SWAT. All my anger that was built after you indirectly telling me to fuck off by cutting off all ties with me in a matter of days! And I'm going to admit, if the mission had gone smoothly and we had brought you back to your place, I would have showed you my true self anyway and then cut off ties with you, just like you did years ago!" she said. "I would have gladly walked away with a smile on my face, knowing you would be left wondering exactly what you did that was so wrong for the rest of your life! Just like me!"

Weiss then did something she didn't mean to do at that moment, but she did anyway. She hugged Ruby with all her strength. Ruby might have gotten a lot stronger over the years, but Weiss still heard the air be crushed out of Ruby.

"I never wanted to abandon you Ruby. The day after I got home, my father made a drastic decision for the 'sake of the company'. He took my phone and computer and destroyed them. The only phone in the house was in his office which was locked by key and pass code when he was away and out of it. He then trapped me in the house. I couldn't leave." Weiss told her.

"Then why didn't you escape?" Ruby asked, her anger subsiding.

"I tried to, but every time I was caught and then later on the security was upped," Weiss said, she had tears forming at the corners of her eyes. "I was a prisoner in my own home."

Ruby looked slightly down at Weiss. "So, you never wanted to be away from me? I wasn't a distraction?" Ruby asked.

"Of course you weren't, Ruby. I never, ever wanted to leave you." Weiss said. "But, please, explain to me why you're 'dead'." she said as she briefly let go of Ruby to form air quotes.

"Well," Ruby started as she gave another nervous laugh. "A few hours after we graduated from the SWAT training, Blake, Yang and I-" Weiss cut off Ruby for a second.

"Black and Yellow are Blake and Yang, aren't they?" Weiss asked.

"Yeeaah." Ruby trailed off, turning her gaze away from Weiss briefly.

Weiss brought her hand up and pinched the brim of her nose. Finding out that two more of her friends were alive was straining her mind but was making her the happiest she's ever been in the past ten years.

"Continue." Weiss said.

"Ok, well, after the SWAT graduation, the three of us decided to go to a bar to celebrate. Later into the night, there was a bar fight and the three of us practically beat down every drunkard there. All except for one man, you met him earlier. Well, he gave the three of us cards after he said that we were pretty good fighters and that he could use people like us. He then finished his drink and left the bar. Those cards he gave us were essentially invitations to here," Ruby said as she gestured her hand across the room. "to H&H mercenary services. Me or Blake didn't know who they were, but Yang did, she said that they were the best mercenary group around and was hard to get an invitation into. So, after a lot of thinking we were brought in, but had to fake our deaths." Ruby explained.

"I saw on the Vale news that you three were in a car accident." Weiss said.

Ruby nodded. "All planned out. We faked our deaths, the bodies in Blake's car were fake and carried off by H&H personnel. Actually, all first responders to the accident were H&H." Ruby said.

Weiss then realized where she had seen the one commander before. She had seen him on the news broadcast, posing as a police officer.

"Wait, you said that the mercenary group was hard to get into. But from what I saw outside, this place looks to be more than a private invitation now." Weiss said.

"Well, two years ago, they stepped up recruitment for some reason. I don't know why, they never told anyone why we were getting so many new recruits."

Weiss nodded. "That leaves me with one more question." she said.

"What would that be?" Ruby asked.

"Why did you join in? What was your purpose for joining the mercenaries?" Weiss asked.

Ruby sighed. "I guess there's no avoiding this one." she said. "I joined the with the mercenaries, Weiss, because I thought I was never going to see you again. I wanted to find a thrill in my life to make me forget you because I thought you never wanted to see me."

Weiss looked down when Ruby said that. "I guess that means I screwed up your life then. I'm the reason you're here. I'm the reason you're known to be dead. I'm guessing you hate me, huh?" she said.

Ruby put her arms around Weiss in a tight hug. "I could never hate you Weiss. You're not the reason I'm here, either. I made this choice on my own, you don't have to blame yourself." she said.

Weiss was now feeling tears trickle from her eyes. They were tears if a mix of sadness and joy. The sadness was from her still feeling guilty about this whole problem and the joy from learning her friends and girlfriend were alive.

"Wait," Weiss said. "What about our relationship?" she asked.

"What do you think about it?" Ruby asked in return.

"I, personally, didn't want it to end. Also we never technically broke up. I just vanished, not my fault mind you, and you "died"." Weiss said 'died' with air quotes again.

Ruby gave Weiss a smile. "I feel the same way." she said.

The girls leaned in and their lips met in a pationate kiss. After a few seconds, they parted.

"But we may have to keep it secret here." Ruby said. "Three years in this business and I still don't know the policy of relationships. Not to mention one with a person who is not someone in H&H. But then, the rule is that if you want to be in, you must be considered dead. And, oh boy, what if-" Ruby started to worry about the possible outcomes of this but was silenced when Weiss pressed a finger against Ruby's lips.

"We'll go down that road when we come to it." Weiss stated. "For now, just don't fret over it." Weiss then pulled Ruby in for a other hug.

Weiss couldn't remember the last time she was this happy.

The next thing that happened was completely unexpected.

The door to the room swung open to reveal Yang standing there. She walked in while talking. "Ruby, do you know where Weiss is because... Oh." she was about to continue her sentence, but noticed that Ruby and Weiss were standing in the middle of the room, hugging, and Ruby didn't have her mask or anything covering her face.

"Uuuhhhh..." Yang droned on.

"Hello, Yang." Weiss said with a smile.

Yang seemed to be at a loss for words. Her mind was trying to process the situation before her. She tried to speak of what she came here for, but only came out as a broken message.

"Uumm... Briefing... Both you... Yeah." she said. With that, Yang bolted out the room and down the halls.

Ruby sighed as she walked over to her dresser and pulled out her spare voice modifier and scarf. She put the two around her mouth and looked to Weiss.

"Guess our little reunion is being cut short." She said, her voice now deep again.

"Sadly." Weiss said.

"Come on, let's go." Ruby said.

The two walked out of the door of the room and through the halls until they came upon the briefing room. When they walked inside, they found the two commanders sitting at one end of the table and Yang and Blake sitting at the other end.

Ruby nodded to the commanders. "Sir's." she greeted.

"Please take a seat, Captain Red." said Angel. "You as well, Miss Schnee."

The two took their seats in between Yang and Blake. Yang kept glancing nervously at Ruby and Weiss, obviously concerned about what she had seen back at Ruby's room.

"So, which do you want first the bad news or the bad news?" Dred said, not looking up from his laptop.

"No good news?" Ruby asked.

Both commanders shook their heads. "There's actually two bad news." Dred said.

"Well, I say we take bad news number two first, seeing as that one is the worst one. I think." Weiss said.

Dred and Angel exchanged quick glances. Angel then nodded at Dred, who then pressed a few buttons on the laptop and scrolled a few times.

Then without saying a word, he spun around the laptop to show the image of a bounty listing. Her father's bounty listing. She examined the exact amount of lien that was now placed on him.

1,576,000 L.

Then, directly under the total amount of lien, it said one word.

CLAIMED

Weiss stared at the screen for a full minute or so, she then looked up at the commanders.

"What is this supposed to mean?" Weiss asked, fearing the worst.

"It means your father's dead." Angel said bluntly. That was a practical definition of the commanders. Blunt and straight to the point.

"What?" Weiss said in disbelief. "What happened."

Dred spun around the laptop and checked the description. "Says here that he and a group of his guards were found camping out in the woods a few miles away from the burning down Schnee Manor. White Fang ambushed them, yada yada, large firefight with odds favoring in White Fang, yada yada, White Fang kills all guards and Herald Schnee is executed by a White Fang assassin known as... Adam Taurus?" Dred explained.

"Why does that name seem familiar?" Angel said as he opened up the second laptop in front of him.

Weiss, meanwhile, felt like she had just been hit by a truck. Her eyes were wide and her jaw was slack.

Today was a roller coaster of emotions. First, she learns that her girlfriend and two of her best friends are alive after being considered dead for 3 years, then she finds out that her father has been killed.

She hated the man for keeping she and her companions apart for such a large period of time for the so called "good of the company", but he was still her father. She never even wanted to be in the family business. At points, she felt half tempted in college to switch her courses from business classes to crime and justice, just to be in the same occupation as her friends.

Weiss didn't want to show any feeling over knowing her father was dead, but a single tear forced its way down her cheek. 'That's all you get.' Weiss thought to herself.

"There it is," Angel said. "Adam Taurus, ex-member of H&H. Used to be one of our best assassins. Says here that one day he just vanished, all the stuff in his room was gone and his locker was cleaned out." Angel looked over at Dred. "We only heard of him because he was here when Dad ran the company." he explained.

"Ooohh." Dred said, sounding slightly interested in the subject.

"Wait, Sir's, what's going on?" Yang asked, clearly confused.

"Nothing, Yellow." Dred said. "Nothing that concerns you."

"Although, we now go onto our next set of bad news." Angel said. He turned his head over towards Ruby. "Miss Rose, it would appear that your cover has been compromised."

Weiss could see some of the color drain from Ruby's face, she didn't have any shades on at the moment so Weiss could see the upper half of her face. "W-what do you mean?" she asked.

"Go ahead you three, take them off, we know that you know Miss Schnee from your past. Miss Rose, please note, that your cover was blown accidentally, so don't feel aback by this." Dred said.

The three looked scared, but they took off their scarves and modifiers.

Weiss then stared at the faces of Ruby, Blake and Yang. She already knew that they were alive, but it was still weird to see their faces again.

"Hi, Weiss." Blake said.

"Hey, Weiss." said Yang.

"Hey, Weiss." Ruby said as well.

"Hello." Weiss said. They stared at each other for a good minute, with silence in the room. It was Angel who broke the silence.

"Oh, for god's sake, just have a group hug already and get it over with. It's not everyday you find out friends are alive." he said.

The girls looked unsettled by this remark. Ruby and Blake were the first to go up and hug Weiss. Yang stayed back though.

"Yang?" Ruby questioned.

Dred gave Angel a look that said 'Grab the popcorn!'

"Hold on, Ruby." Yang said. She gave Weiss a menacing look that could have killed her if looks could. "Weiss, do you know how much pain you put my sister through? How many days I saw her broken? How many nights I had comfort her until she cried herself to sleep? How much she blam-?" she would have continued but Ruby interrupted her.

"Yang!" she yelled.

"Ruby, back when your relationship started with her in college, I swore to myself that if she ever hurt you in anyway, I would hurt her beyond what any doctor or plastic surgeon could fix." She said.

"Yang, you don't have to do any of that." Ruby said. She then went on and explained everything that was Weiss had told her about the late Herald Schnee. She then said that she explained everything about her entering H&H, which didn't get her a good look from the commanders.

After Ruby was done, the menacing look faded from Yang's face. She mumbled something that no one understood.

"What was that, speak up." said Dred.

"I said, I'm sorry Weiss. I guess I should have gotten the fully story before I kinda started threatening you." Yang said.

"I-it's okay, Yang." stuttered Weiss. She still felt nervous around the blonde warrior after the threats.

Yang was about to join the group hug when a knock of the door was heard.

"Come in." said Dred.

The door swung open and a man stepped in. He was a mercenary who looked to have just returned from a combat mission. He had blonde hair that looked like he just got out of bed. He wore black tinted shades and a red scarf. He wore the usual H&H gear with the black Kevlar vest and the black cargo pants. Behind him, a blonde tail swirled around. On the vest were some shotgun shells strapped in small bands. On his right thigh, a sawed-off, pump-action shotgun with no stock was in a large holster. Hanging from a belt wrapped around his shoulder was a SCAR-L assault rifle which had an ACOG scope, a fore grip, a fixed stock and a few other attachments. Attached to his belt on his cargo pants, was a mask that was used by the White Fang. Under his Kevlar vest was a white button down shirt which had the H&H logo on one sleeve and a golden lieutenant bar on the other. He looked really well built from the way his arms looked. The code name on his vest read, Rise. Over his shoulders was a large black duffel bag.

"'Sup." he said as he walked in, his voice deep from a modifier.

"Hey, Rise. How'd it go?" Dred asked.

"Well, luckily I got out of there without too much suspicion." he said as he swung the duffel bag onto the table.

The girls, who had now deformed the awkward group hug, looked at the mercenary confusingly.

"Who's this?" asked Blake.

"This is, Rise." Angel said. "He's one of our guys inside the White Fang."

"We have guys inside the White Fang?" Ruby asked.

"Yes, and he might be the only one you'll be meeting." Angel explained.

"Ok, then what's he doing here?" Yang asked.

"Well, when we first heard the Schnee Manor was burning, we knew that you would be bringing Miss Schnee back here with you. So we asked Rise here if he could visit Schnee Manor and see if he could retrieve any belongings." Angel explained.

"Find anything good?" Dred asked.

"Kinda." Rise said. He turned to Weiss as he opened the duffel bag and pulled out the first object. It was a small stuffed teddy-bear which was now half-burned. "Didn't know what you wanted and what you might have not have wanted." he explained. "So I grabbed a few things." Weiss didn't recognize the teddy-bear so she shrugged at it.

Rise threw the teddy-bear over his shoulder. It hit the wall and landed in a nearby small garbage can.

He then pulled out a book that looked to be encased in glass. A part of the glass had melted and some of the book inside was burned but Weiss recognized it as her diary. The lock to the glass case was still closed and undamaged.

"I swear," Weiss said. "If you opened it and read a single page within that book I'll-"

"Calm down, I didn't read any of it." he said. He then tossed the personal book over to Weiss who caught it with a slight glare.

Over the next few minutes, Rise pulled out a few other knick-knacks and items that Weiss didn't care for.

"That's pretty much it." he said as he placed down a small vase that Weiss had made in the third grade that she didn't know what to do with when she lived at White Castle.

"That's it?" Weiss asked.

"Well, I did save the best find for last." Rise said.

"And what would that be?" Weiss asked.

Rise reached into the duffel bag and pulled out a long straight tube. It was roughly four feet long.

Weiss realized that it was the sword that her father kept in the study.

The long sheath had the name, Myrtenaster, engraved into it.

Weiss took the sheathed rapier from the mercenary. Weiss' memories of fencing came back to her as she unsheathed the blade and gave a few practice slashes and stabs in the air.

"So I'm guessing you'll keep it?" Rise asked.

Weiss' only response was her re-sheathing the rapier.

"I'll take that as a yes." Angel said.

"Thank you, Rise, you are dismissed. Please take the discarded items and put them... Somewhere." Dred said.

"Yes, Sir." Rise said. He grabbed the bag full of rejected items, and left the room, closing the door behind him.

"Well, now that we got that out of the way, there is still one pressing issue." Angel said.

"Your covers." Dred said, looking to Ruby, Blake and Yang.

"We'll have to leave, won't we?" Ruby said.

"As long as Miss Schnee will never speak of your names and this business being affiliated with each other, no. But, in the end, none of this would have never happened and you all will never be able to see each other again." Dred stated. "I know it seems unfair, but it's been that way for a while now."

All girls eyes went towards the ground as they learned that this day was too good to be true. Weiss had thought of a solution that could possibly help the issue but she wasn't sure if she should voice the opinion.

"Sir's, there has to be a way we could make all this work." Ruby said.

"I'm sorry, there isn't, Ruby." Angel said.

Weiss surprised herself when half her mind said 'fuck it' and the other half was screaming 'What are you doing!?'

"I have an idea that might solve this." Weiss said.

All eyes turned to her.

"And what would that be?" the commanders said in unison.

Weiss looked at the two commanders.

'Don't do it!' the one half of her mind screamed.

"I want in."

* * *

**AN: Chapter 5, complete! I know, I know, I'm kinda leaving you with another cliffhangar, but I'm liking writing them more.**

**IMPORTANT INFO - 1: So the first piece of information I am bringing you here today (My god, this sounds like an E3 press conference) is that I am announcing a branch off story to Life Lessons Learned The Hard Way. I haven't thought of a title yet, but It's going about the 47 marks that Ruby has on her rifle. It will be a tale that focuses on all the tactical working of H&H Mercenary Services. I got the idea after i read a review saying how the reader said he wanted to see more tactical combat. Well, you're getting your wish Sangheiliat117. It probably won't be 47 chapters exactly because each chapter might be pretty long. So, look around in the near to distant future for that branch story.**

**IMPORTANT INFO - 2: I figure I might get a load of these, but here goes nothing. If you wish to submit and OC for either Life Lessons or the future story, you can here. Just take note, you may choose from either an H&H mercenary, an Atlas or Vytal military soldier, or for the future story you can submit some criminal or someone that Ruby will take out. **

**Just make sure you leave a... **

**1. Good description of your OC**

**2. Weapon of choice (will not accept anyone with an insane weapon he/she only uses like a handheld minigun or a laser or something else crazy)**

**3. Crimes committed (only for the future story criminal)**

**So there is my important information that I have for you guys today. I hope you all like this chater and that you're excited for the next on and that you're also excited for the new story that will come out later on in the summer.**

**Shoutout to Shattered Spectre for helping out a ton in this chapter by beta reading and changing a few things to make it better (because I realized I kinda stink at writing drama parts) for you guys to read.**

**That it all, please favorite, follow and review if you haven't. Thanks for reading, and I'll see you all, in the next chapter.**


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